


[You're the Only Person Who Doesn't See] How Incredible You Are

by ainewrites



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: AU, And a happy ending, F/F, Fluff, Introducing, New Girl au, Some angst, always and forever a happy ending, and jillian holtzmann as nick miller, blame five hours of sleep a night brain, erin gilbert as jessica day, i dunno, slowburn, which is a new one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-10-30 21:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainewrites/pseuds/ainewrites
Summary: “And so that’s why I need a new apartment. I’m sorry…what was the question?”The three women sitting on the couch across from her look at her in varying stages of confusion.“Uh…do you have any pets?”-The Ghostbusters/New Girl 'fic that no one asked for but is getting anyway.





	1. Who's That Girl

**Author's Note:**

> SO. Here I am with a New Girl/Ghostbusters 'fic. It's not a crossover, so I'm not tagging it under the New Girl tag because it's not really New Girl. It's the four Ghostbusters (plus Kevin and Jennifer Lynch and Rebecca Gorin) in the New Girl loft, because I dunno, I think it's a fun dynamic. And I really want to try my hand at AUs. Also, bartender Holtzmann. 
> 
> It follows the plot of the first episode pretty closely, then it kind of veers off course, and there will be plots from one or two episodes in here but I'm not rewriting New Girl with the Ghostbusters, I'm just kind of...kidnapping it and making it my own, I guess. I'm throwing in a couple of Parks and Rec things in here, too, because while I'm doing the sitcom thing I might as well go all out, right?
> 
> Also! This is the first 'fic that doesn't have a song as a title. Instead, it has a New Girl quote. I can't remember what episode it's from, but I know Jess said it to Nick and I'm preeety sure it's from the episode where Schmidt and Cece get married.
> 
> Also, in this 'fic, Holtzmann and Dr. Gorin are about the same age, and are ex-girlfriends, because welcome Rebecca Gorin are Caroline!

“So, you know in horror movies, when the girl is like oh my god, there’s something in the basement, let me go down into the basement in my underwear and investigate? And you’re like no, you should call the police, but she goes down anyways and then gets murdered? Well, my story’s kind of like that.”

-

“And so that’s why I need a new apartment. I’m sorry…what was the question?”

The three women sitting on the couch across from her look at her in varying stages of confusion.

“Uh…do you have any pets?”

-

Erin twists her hands together, cheeks flaring red. She’d just spewed a fifteen-minute story to three strangers, about how her boyfriend of six years is cheating on her, and about how she discovered it (did she really just tell them she came home in only a trench coat?). She’s waiting for them to kick her out (because _who does that_ during an interview for becoming a roommate?), but instead, they’re looking at her in fascination.

The one in the middle leans toward Erin. She has a notebook open in her lap, and absentmindedly pushes a pair of glasses up her nose. “What drew you to this loft?”

Erin shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, the description sounded nice. Sun-soaked and beigey. Phil hated sunlight.” She chokes, a little bit, and clears her throat. “Sorry. It’s…it’s kind of hard to say his name.”

“It’s fine,” the woman closest to Erin says. Patty, Erin thinks. “Holtzmann just got dumped.”

The last woman, a small, blonde woman, lounging against the couch with her feet up on her coffee table, makes a dismissive gesture, a good-natured grin on her face. “Yeah. I got “dumped”.” She makes air quotes with her fingers, and the woman in the middle, (Abby?) rolls her eyes, and Patty gives Holtzmann a pointed look.

“Fine, she dumped me. I got dumped. It was six months ago. I’m over it.” Her gaze meets Erin’s, a smile curling up at the corner of her lips, and Erin flashes back to how she met the woman, twenty minutes before. (“Come here often?” she had said, leaning against the doorway, twirling a pencil in her fingers.)

Holtzmann leans forward, tilting her head slightly. “Jillian Holtzmann. Radio times. What have you been doing?”

“Oh, uh…” Erin trails off for a second, gathering scattered thoughts. “I’m a professor of particle physics. I tend to talk to myself a lot when I’m working through some of the harder equations, so I’ll probably be bringing a couple of whiteboards, and I’m tired of living with my friend. He’s a model.”

Patty grins. “A model? How soon can you move in?” She grunts as Abby digs an elbow into her side, pushing the other woman away, lightly. Abby gives Erin an apologetic look, grabbing the other two women by the elbows.

“Can you excuse us for a second? I gotta talk with my girls.”

“Since when do you call us “your girls”?” Erin hears Patty ask, even as Abby drags them down the hall. She exhales, softly, and takes another look around the apartment. It is beautiful, and large, larger than the house she and Phil rented, even, which was a tiny, one-bedroom place. She hopes she can move in here.

About five minutes later, the other three women come out, grinning, and tell her she can.

-

She learns a lot in a very short amount of time.

One, they want her to move in immediately. Two, that despite the apartment having four bedrooms, the owner says they can only have three people, so if anyone comes knocking, Erin is just Abby’s childhood friend taking over the guest bedroom for a couple of weeks. And, three, that Holtzmann is not a shy nor quiet person.

In the span of time it takes to take a trip from the moving van up to the apartment, which is less than ten minutes, she learns that Patty is a historian who works some high-level job at City Hall, Abby is a chemistry teacher at a local community college, and Holtzmann is the manager and main bartender at a The Griffon; a bar about ten minutes away from the loft. She also learns that Holtzmann has a degree in engineering, but didn’t like being told what to build and when to do it, so she only “dabbles” now, and considers bartending to be her career.

And now, she looks around the empty room that is now Erin’s, at the few boxes that litter the floor, the empty bedframe. She raises an eyebrow.

“This is all you have?” Holtzmann asks, nudging a moving box with her toe.

Erin looks around. “Yes. Well, no. I left in a hurry, and a lot of my stuff is still at Phil’s. I’m going to go back and get it when it’s not so…fresh.” She sits on the sleeping bag on the floor, tucking her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

“Thanks for helping me get this stuff up here.”

“No problem-o, new roommate,” Holtzmann says cheerfully. She gives Erin a two-fingered salute, and vanishes out the door.

And she’s alone. She looks around the room, painted an alarming shade of teal, and feels something inside her chest crack a little bit. For the last two weeks, she’s always been around someone. Kevin, his friends, the other professors, her students. But now, for the first time, she’s alone in a room, and her boyfriend of six years _cheated_ on her, and she feels awful.

She sits on her sleeping bag, and cries.

-

Erin’s comfort movie is Dirty Dancing. It was her favorite movie as a teenager, and she and her college friends used to watch it and scream along with the songs in their awful, out-of-key voices. And now, she’ll watch it over and over and over whenever she needs to feel those lingering traces of happiness and contentment that those memories bring.

She watches it seven times. The first two times, she cries through the entire movie. The next three times, she only cries during parts of the movie. The sixth time, she only cries at the end.

And the seventh time, she’s interrupted during the final dance. She has a notebook of equations in her lap, because the numbers are familiar and soothing, and she needs to get them done by Monday, anyways. So she keeps one eye on the TV and the other on the paper. In the background, she hears Holtz enter the room, humming something under her breath, the clomp of her heavy boots heading toward the kitchen.

The door is flung open, and Abby and Patty come in. They’re both in running gear, and as soon as Patty sees Holtzmann she makes a beeline over to her.

“So, the Wild West Party is on Saturday, and I’m trying to get us in, but you may need to call Rebecca,” Patty says, leaning against the kitchen island next to Holtz.

“I’m not calling Rebecca,” Holtz says, not even looking up from the strange chunk of machinery she’d dumped on the counter.

“Holtz, hear me out-“

“Shhh,” Holtz says, and places a finger against Patty’s lips. Patty bats her away, opening her mouth to say something else, but at that moment, the song on the screen in front of Erin reaches its peak. And she bursts into tears again.

“Patty, it’s been a week of this,” Holtzmann says, and Abby sighs.

“I’ll take care of this.” The woman rounds the couch, and Erin takes a deep breath, trying to stop her tears (it’s so embarrassing to cry in front of other people, and three almost-strangers, no less).

“Erin, I’m going to take the remote,” Abby says, scooping it up and turning the TV off in one smooth movement. “Hey. How’re you doing?”

Before Erin even has a chance to reply, Abby continues on. “Why don’t you come out with us tonight? It’s a Friday, Holtzmann is working the night shift at the bar, we’ll get you off the couch, which you’ve not left for the past week…”

Erin hesitates, and Holtzmann swoops onto the conversation, vaulting over the top of the couch and landing almost on Erin’s lap, making her bounce. “Come on, Erin. Er. Er-Bear. It’ll be fun.” She’s up and off the couch, grabbing Erin’s hands and hauling her, protesting, to her feet. “It’ll feel better for you to be up off the couch.” She spins in a circle, pulling Erin along with her, and starts singing.

“You’ll get up off the couch, and we’ll go to the bar! Who’s that girl?” She makes finger guns, pointing them at Erin. “It’s Erin!”

Erin can’t help but laugh.

-

The bar is on the corner of one of the streets that branch off the main road. It’s slightly dingy, smells like second-hand smoke, and is playing some of the most awful music Erin has ever heard. She and Patty and Abby perch on stools at the bar, Holtzmann humming from behind it, pouring drinks with a theatrical ease, and sliding beers (for Abby and Patty) and red wine (for Erin) down toward them. She greets customers with an easy enthusiasm, calling them by name, and making most of them drinks without them even ordering. Abby catches her watching.

“Holtz’s been working here since she graduated college,” Abby explains, “And she’s the favorite. There are a couple of customers who come in only on her shift because they like her so much.”

Holtz slides down the bar, leaning against it in front of the three women. “You flatter me. Most of them have been coming in here since they were old enough to drink at the same time every week, and are just too lazy to change it up.”

“Naw, baby, they like you,” Patty says, and Holtz grins.

“You said you were an engineer, right?” Erin asks, tracing the tip of her finger around the rim of her wineglass. Holtz nods, yellow-tinted glasses sliding down her nose.

“She’s a brilliant engineer,” Abby says, proudly, and Holtz turns her grin to her. “She was almost hired by CERN.”

“Very impressive. What happened?” Erin asks.

“There was a lab accident.”

“He’s going to wake up.”

“He woke up yesterday.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“But then he started screaming and fell back into a coma.”

“Well, all that screaming probably tuckered him out.”

This is all said with such an air of casualty that Erin looks between them in mild horror. Patty sighs in equal parts irritation and amusement. “You scare me. I just want you to know that.”

Holtzmann raises both fists in the air in mock celebration, then brings them down to link behind her neck. Erin smiles, and Holtz catches her eye.

“So, Erin, unleash your demons upon us. Any ghosts in your past?”

“Oh, uh…” Erin glances from her, to Patty sitting beside her, then back to Holtzmann. “I don’t know. The typical story.”

Holtz scoops up the soda cup from behind the counter, waving Erin to go on.

“I wasn’t super popular in grade school. I was a loner, but not a loner in the cool way where you have like three friends who would die for you. I was more the socially awkward, extremely anxious loner. College was a bit better, and I had my own friend group, but I don’t really talk with them anymore.”

“What happened?”

Erin shrugs. “We kind of drifted apart. People got jobs and lives and started getting married and having kids. And I was gunning for tenure at Colombia by the time I was thirty-three.”

“What happened?” Abby asks.

Erin laughs, humorlessly. “I apparently didn’t “fit” within their idea of tenured professors. I threw a fit, and I got fired and professionally humiliated, saying that I was unstable and unqualified. But I got a job a UCLA before the rumors spread too far, and moved down here.”

“People are mean, man,” Patty says, shaking her head. “There’s some major rumors that circulate at City Hall.”

“Yeah, Erin, that’s awful,” Abby says.

Holtzmann grins, biting down on her straw. “I have a couple of questions.” She winks, and Erin laughs a little bit, feeling heat rush into her cheeks and gather behind her ribcage.

They stay at the bar until even the longest and latest-staying regulars leave, which is about midnight. Holtzmann flips the neon sign in the window to closed, shrugging on a leather jacket. She and Patty are talking, and Erin catches the name Rebecca more than once.

Abby notices her questioning look. “Holtz’s girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend, I guess. There’s this big fundraiser gala that happens every year, and we’ve always gone to it, but you can only get in if you’ve donated some insane amount of money or if you know someone who can get your name on the list.”

“And Rebecca can get you guys on it?”

Abby nods, pulling her cardigan around herself. “She’s offered a couple of times since she and Holtzy broke up, but Holtzmann turned her down.”

“Oh.”

Abby smiles fondly at the other two women, who are currently wrestling over the keys to the car that was driven to the bar. It’s amusing to watch, especially given their differences in height. “Patty’s disappointed, because she loves it. I don’t think Holtz really cares one way or another if she goes, though, so they’ve been arguing about it for weeks. Holtz insists it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s Rebecca offering, but…” Abby shrugs. “I think she’s finally starting to recognize that it wasn’t the healthiest of relationships to be in.”

“Oh,” Erin says again, softly. It’s hard to imagine the bouncy, cheerful person that is Holtzmann to be in a relationship that is anything less than amazing, and the thought makes Erin feel strangely sad. She’s only known the engineer for a week, after all, she shouldn’t be forming any sort of attachment past roommates-slash-casual-acquaintances this quickly. It’s going against all the rules that Erin sets for herself, to make sure she doesn’t get hurt, like she did when she was a child.

Holtzmann and Patty come over, Patty having won the wrestling match and twirling the keys to Abby’s minivan on her finger. Holtzmann slings one arm over Abby’s shoulder and the other over Erin’s, pulling them close to her.

“Come on, ladies,” she crows, “The night is still young.”

Abby’s eyes light up. “True American?”

Patty shakes her head. “I’m going to have to say no to that one. Sorry, baby, but I’ve got to go into work tomorrow. Apparently one of the interns needs my help, and I can’t do my best work with a hangover.”

“Aw, Pattycakes, you ruin our fun,” Holtzmann says, kicking open the door with her foot, not letting go of either Erin or Abby. They shuffle awkwardly outside, the blast of chilly, early-fall air refreshing after the almost stuffy heat of the bar. Erin can almost hear Patty’s eyeroll as she pushes against Holtzmann’s shoulder blades gently, in jest.

As they all pack into the car, the other three bickering, Erin lets herself wonder, for a minute, what it would be like to have this kind of easy, flowing friendship. She’s not planning on staying in the loft for longer than she needs too (she prefers living alone, or with a significant other but that’s in, and the thought causes a pang in her chest, because she had almost managed to forget why she’s living with in the loft in the first place), but she thinks that maybe, she might enjoy the time that she is here.

-

She’s woken up at three AM by crashes and classic rock. It’s an odd combination, which is why Erin gets up instead of just rolling over and falling back to sleep. She slips past Patty’s room, not quite familiar yet with what floorboards creak, so she steps on tip-toes and shuffles rather than walks, rounding the corner into the living room.

It takes her a moment to register what she’s seeing. Holtzmann, at the table, piles of machine parts in front of her. Erin can pick out a toaster and a boombox and what looks suspiciously like a piece of car engine from among the piles, but the rest seem just to be parts, sorted into haphazard, unorganized piles.

Holtzmann looks up. An owl in yellow-tinted goggles, boots on the table, wires and bolt cutters in her hands. The room is dark, only illuminated by the warm glow of the streetlamps outside the window.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“It’s fine,” Erin says, wrapping her arms around herself. It’s colder out here than it is in her bedroom, and she’s barefoot, the chill from the hardwood floors seeping up through the soles of her feet. “I’m kind of a restless sleeper.”

Holtz winces. “Sorry,” she says again, and sounds apologetic. “Abby could sleep through the nuclear apocalypse and Patty has earplugs. I forgot you might not.” She reaches over to the radio (that isn’t on the scrap pile), turning it down until it’s barely heard. She gestures at the desk chair inexplicably at the head of the table, and Erin takes the silent invitation, sitting down and tucking her legs underneath her.

“What are you doing?” Erin watches as Holtz strips a wire with her teeth (which makes Erin flinch), her attention returning to the hunk of parts in front of her.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Holtzmann says breezily, giving her pliers a dramatic twirl through her fingers when she picks them up. “Possibly a new engine for Abby’s van, possibly a generator, _maaaaaaybe_ a bomb. Really depends. Either way, chances of poofs are high.”

“Poofs?”

“Only small ones,” Holtzmann says, miming an explosion. “Medium at the very most.” She reaches toward a blowtorch that Erin hadn’t noticed, igniting the gas with a gentle whoosh. Erin is suddenly very aware of the scorch marks on the floor.

There’s something fascinating about watching Holtz work. She moves in quick flutters, often accompanied by a spin or a gesture. She hums, sometimes to the song on the radio, sometimes to something completely different, transitioning from song to song, tapping whatever tools are in her hand against the tabletop like drumsticks.

The electric red numbers on the clock click steadily by, and Erin can feel her tiredness heavy against her eyes, but she’s comfortable where she is and the short walk back to her bed seems like it would take forever. Instead, she lets time blur and waver, slipping into a sort of trance, and she’s only jolted out of it by the radio.

Holtz is lip-syncing into a screwdriver, slipping out of her chair. She twirls her blowtorch in her hand, and Erin can only watch, wide-eyed, as she spins. The edge of the flame brushes against the roll of paper towels, and Erin gasps, pointing.

“Holtz! Holtzmann! Fire!”

Still doing a strutting dance, Holtzmann scoops up a fire extinguisher from the bottom shelf of a bookcase under the window, and blasts the roll with white foam. A door opens and closes in the background, and Abby comes out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.

“Hate to _DeBarge_ in,” she says, grinning and pointing at Holtzmann. At Erin’s look, her grin gets wider. “She loves it.”

“That was DeBarge?” Holtz says, fire out and blowtorch off, leaning against the table. “I thought it was Divo.”

“Um, good morning?” Erin says, and Abby waves. The clock says 5:45AM, and Erin tilts her head. “Why are you up so early?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Abby answers, dropping a bagel into the toaster, and dumping a scoop of coffee grounds into the machine. “But I like to grade papers at the coffee shop down the street when it opens. Helps keep me from punching things because my students are idiots.” She opens a cupboard to pull out a mug, using her other hand to switch the coffee pot on. “I’m teaching Chem 101 right now, and I’m seriously regretting accepting the job.”

A series of popping sounds makes Erin’s head turn, and she watches as Holtz twists and stretches, groaning. A stripe of skin is visible above the waistline of her pants as her shirt rides up, and Erin can feel her eyes drawn to it. She doesn’t know why, and hastily yanks her graze away. Holtz switches the radio off, yawning wide, and Erin can feel a yawn tugging at the corners of her mouth, too.

She mutters some combination of goodbye and good morning, and shuffles back to her room. She should have gone back to bed hours ago.

-

She’s been living in the loft for almost two weeks when Phil contacts her. It’s out of the blue, after a month of not hearing from him, and she

[RECEIVED: PHIL, 12:35PM: Erin, I’m sorry. We need to talk.]

Erin almost deletes the text four times, but every time, something stops her from hitting the button. Patty finds her almost deleting it the fifth time, and reads it over her shoulder before she can pull her phone away.

“Ignore him, Erin,” She advises, plopping down into the stool.

“But,” Erin says helplessly, “What if it was massive mistake? A one-time thing? Or, like, she seduced him into bed with her, and the minute he saw me he regretted it?”

“That’s a foolish hope,” Abby says, bluntly, and Holtz, from where she’s perched on the kitchen island with a coffee cup of orange juice in her hands, nods.

“But-“

“Do you still follow him on Facebook?” Holtz asks, and Erin frowns at the question.

“I think so, I mean, I don’t ever go on Facebook, so I wouldn’t have unfriended him.”

Before she realizes what’s happening, Holtz has her computer open, and Erin hears the ding as it unlocks and lets her in.

“How did-?”

Holtzmann waves her hand dismissively. “The first night you moved in you left your computer on the table. I figured I should probably find your password in case there’s an accident and we’re the only ones around to delete your internet history.”

That particular piece of information is a little bit too much for Erin’s brain, so she resolves to broach that topic later, and instead reaches for her laptop. “Holtz.”

“I’m in!” Holtz says, grinning, and spins the laptop around, Phil’s Facebook page displayed on it. Patty grabs it before Erin can, and Abby crowds up over her shoulder to peer at the screen.

“He looks like he dances real sexy,” Patty says appreciatively, and Abby scoffs.

“I know how that guy dances,” Abby says, “He doesn’t move from the ribcage down. It’s stiff, it’s rigid, there’s a lot of teeth, and he thinks he’s doing you a favor.”

“Naw,” Patty says, laughter in her voice. “He rips that v-neck off and he gets it busy, man.”

“He rips that v-neck off, he’s got another v-neck beneath it.”

They both dissolve in giggles, and Erin makes another snatching grab for her laptop. This time, she gets it, and closes it with a click, pulling it to her chest. “Guys,” she says, and her voice cracks a little bit, and they must notice it because they stop.

Patty grabs her shoulder. “Erin, he’s like the walking definition of bland white dude. You can do better.”

“I was with him for six years. I loved him.” Erin hates how her voice is cracking, and everyone gets quiet. “I think I should at least talk with him.”

Abby reaches over, pats her hand. “Okay. Just…don’t go in with your hopes too high, okay? Because even if he regretted it later, he still cheated on you, which means he’s an asshole.”

Erin nods, her exhale unsteady, catching in her throat. “I know,” She says.

[TO: PHIL, 3:21PM: Okay. How about tomorrow at the Mercado?]

She hits send.

-

Holtzmann is bored. She’d, much to Patty’s delight, agreed to ask Rebecca if she could get them on the list for the Wild West Party, and she did, so now Abby and Patty are getting ready for that, and Erin’s getting ready for her not-date with her ex-boyfriend. Holtz’s version of getting ready was to pull on her red velvet smoking jacket and jam on her boots, so now she’s on the couch, upside down, feet over the back. At one point Abby joins her, looking pretty much the same as she had half an hour ago, just now she’s wearing a dress and a cardigan, instead of jeans and a cardigan.

Patty takes another twenty minutes, and she comes out wearing a bright red cowboy hat, bandana, and matching heels.

And, finally, there’s Erin. She’s not wearing the tweed suits that Holtzmann thinks makes up her entire wardrobe. She’s wearing a black skirt over a white button up, and,

“Ma’am,” Holtzmann says, holding up an imaginary camera. “Can you tell us where you got the world’s tiniest bow-tie?”

Erin’s hand goes to her collarbone. “It, uh, came with the shirt.”

Abby shoots Holtz a look that clearly says _quit it_. Her phone beeps, and she glances at it. “Our ride’s here.” She stands up. “Erin, you look great.”

“Yeah, baby, go show him what he’s missing.” Patty claps her on the shoulder as she follows after Patty. Holtz trails after them. She grins as she passes Erin. “Looking good, hot stuff.”

Holtzmann delights in the shade of red that Erin turns, and she whistles as she jogs to catch up with Abby and Patty.

She tries not to think about how good Erin looks, because she’s many things, but she doesn’t fall for straight girls, and Erin practically oozes straightness out of her ears.

But still. She looked good.

-

Music thuds out of the courtyard as Holtz, Patty, and Abby join the crowd of people. It’s an odd mix of formal wear and leftover Halloween costumes, and they fit right in. Patty elbows her way through the crowd to check to make sure their names are actually on the list, and Holtz lazily scans the crowd in a state of disinterest. At least, until she hears her name.

“Jillian!”

She turns. “Rebecca!”

Rebecca Gorin parts the crowd with an ease that Holtzmann envies. “You came.” Her voice holds barely any warmth, but she squeezes Holtzmann’s arm.

“Yeah, I did.” Holtz can’t help but smile. She knows that Abby is looking at Rebecca in an undisguised dislike (they never liked each other), but she doesn’t turn around.

“I was thinking that while we’re both here, we should get drinks,” Rebecca says, gently pulling Holtzmann toward the entrance.

“Yeah, that sounds great!” Holtzmann says happily. She opens her mouth to say something else, but she’s interrupted by Abby.

“HEY, ASSHOLE!” She yells, and it takes a second to see who her scream is directed towards, but then something clicks, and she remembers a profile picture from a Facebook account.

“Where’s Erin?” She asks, and Phil Hudson gives her a once-over, lip curling.

“Back at the Mercado,” he says, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “She got a bit too emotional.”

“Hey, y’all, we’re in, what are y’all hanging out back here for- oh.” Patty appears behind Abby, and looks at Phil in disgust.

“You left her at the restaurant?” Abby demands, hands on hips. Holtzmann can see her fists clenching in her cardigan, and reaches out to lay a hand on her best friend’s arm.

“Abby, we’ll go get her.”

“Who are you?” Phil asks, looking between the three of them like they’re a piece of mud tracked on his carpet.

“We’re her roommates,” Abby says, loyalty ringing in her voice, and Holtzmann feels a rush of fondness for her best friend. They’ve barely known Erin for two weeks, and Abby is already rushing to her defense, and Holtzmann loves that about her.

“What are y’all standing here for?” Patty says, “The Mercado is only a couple of blocks up.” She breaks off into a jog (seemingly perfectly balanced on her heels), and Abby shoots one last venom-filled glare at Phil and follows.

“Jillian, are we going to get a drink?” Rebecca asks, hand still on Holtzmann’s arm, and for a second, Holtz lets herself consider the possibility, of going into the party, getting a drink with Rebecca, and maybe, maybe picking it up where they left off, because a part of her still goes warm and soft and fluttery where Rebecca is involved.

But, then, Abby yells her name, and Holtzmann gently removes her arm from Rebecca’s grip. “I’m going to have to take a rain check, Becca. But I’ll see you around!” She grins, tongue between her teeth, giving Rebecca a salute, then takes off after her friends.

-

Erin sits on the bench outside the restaurant, head in her hands. She can feel the eyes of the people entering and leaving the building on her, but it feels like Phil has cracked something in her chest.

 _You’re too emotional, Erin. It would have never worked out between us_.

It would have been nice to know that six years ago.

There’s a pattering of footsteps, stopping in front of her, and she looks up. It’s Abby and Patty, both of them panting and out of breath, and Holtzmann jogs up a second later, looking relaxed and breathing easily, as if she’d just rolled out of bed.

“Erin, he’s a douchebag,” Abby says, and Patty nods.

Erin cracks a joyless smile. “Thanks, guys,” she says lifelessly. “I kind of just found that out.”

She buries her head back in her hands. There’s frantic whispering above her, and, suddenly, she hears Holtzmann start singing.

“ _Now I’ve had the time of my life_ ,” she sings, gesturing dramatically. “ _I’ve never felt like this before!_ ” She grabs Erin’s arms, pulling her upright.

In the background, Abby and Patty exchange heavy sighs, but they pick up the song, tuneless and awkwardly, before getting more confident.

“NOOOOOW I’VE HAD THE TIME OF MY LI-I-I-IFE, AND I’VE NEEEEVER FELT THIS WAAAAY BEEEFOOORE.”

Erin laughs, and Holtzmann grins, dimple in her cheek flashing, and attempts to dip Erin. Erin grabs onto her shoulders before she can, still laughing. Holtzmann pulls her back upright, still singing, slinging an arm around her shoulders, directing her back in the direction of the loft. They sing the entire way, and Erin, for once, doesn’t care about the odd glances strangers cast her way.

Maybe living in this loft for a few months won’t be that bad, after all.


	2. Someone Needs to Stay Sober to Fight Him Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is mildly inspired by S1E12 (the Landlord), which is what the quote in the chapter title comes from, but, uh...it doesn't really follow the plot? I mean, creepy/icky landlord, yes, which the golden quote that I had to use for the title, but other than that...not super similar.

 

 

She’s lived in the loft for maybe a month when she starts to realize that it’s falling apart around them. It’s beautiful, yes, with its high ceilings and hardwood floors and large windows, but it’s also extremely run-down. Only one of the three toilets flush (why they have three, Erin has no idea), the shower will only have hot water if you leave the bathroom tap running as cold as possible, the heaters alternate between making the loft 105 and 55 degrees, and the temperature varies wildly from room to room. She’s pretty sure there’s a squirrel nest in the wall, the door only locks about half of the time, and the garbage disposable often makes an alarming grinding-whirring sound.

It’s making the sound now, and Erin winces, letting go of the switch to cover her ears.

“HOLTZY!” Abby calls, not looking up from her newspaper and coffee, and a tiny blonde blur zooms into the kitchen.

“On it!” Holtz sings, annoyingly awake for 7AM. She jumps up to swipe a long stick with an end wrapped in duct tape off the shelf, and jams it down into the garbage disposal. Erin jumps backward as Holtzmann, humming, violently yanks the stick back and forth, the sound from the disposal getting even worse.

“There,” she says, pulling the stick out. She switches the disposal on and off again, and this time, the noise coming from the sink is actually normal. Holtz flings the stick in the general direction of the shelf, and yanks open the fridge.

“Uh,” Erin says, but neither Abby nor Patty, who’s next to Abby, seems bothered or surprised by what Erin just witnessed. “How…?”

“It’s simple, Er-Bear,” Holtzmann says, tipping her head back so she can take a large swallow of milk directly from the carton. She pulls it down and drags the back of her hand across her mouth as Erin looks on in horror. “I accidently dropped wooden spoon down the garbage disposal, and it chewed it up pretty good but when I pulled it out it was working better than ever. And ta da! Fixer stick.”

“Why don’t you call your landlord?” Erin asks, following Holtzmann out of the kitchen. She has the milk carton tucked under her elbow, and she plops down into a chair next to Abby.

“Rowan?” Abby says, looking up. “We try not to deal with him any more than necessary.”

“Why? I mean, I know that you’re not supposed to have more than three renters, but I thought you guys had a plan for that.”

Patty stabs at her eggs with a fork. “We do. Rowan’s just a creepy little dude.”

Abby nods. “The first time I met him he told me I had gorgeous skin and he wished he had it.”

Holtzmann raises a hand. “He asked me how lesbians had sex, then told me that he could turn me straight if I wanted.”

Erin shudders, and she looks questionably toward Patty. Patty sighs.

“He told me that he never dates anyone more than a foot taller than him because it makes his thang look small.”

“His thang?” Erin asks, eyebrows furrowing, and Patty smirks.

“Y’know. His thang. His ding-a-ling.”

Holtzmann snorts, and Abby chokes on her coffee as she takes a sip to cover her smirk. Erin feels her cheeks flush.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Patty shrugs. “We don’t really want him in the loft, even if it to fix stuff. Besides, Holtzy is pretty damn handy with the fixer stick.”

“Thank you, I try,” Holtz says, faux-humbly, spinning in her chair. She props her boots up on the table, resting the milk carton on her stomach. She takes a long swig, and Erin watches as her throat bobs.

“It’s just easier to pretend Rowan doesn’t exist,” Abby says, refolding her newspaper. “And we don’t have to worry about him.”

“The farther his creepy ass is from this apartment, the better,” Patty declares, and Abby and Holtz nod in agreement.

Erin frowns (she would like for the loft to be an actual reasonable temperature), but she nods. She deals with enough creepy guys walking down the street, she doesn’t need to deal with another one in her own home.

-

Erin thinks she can live with the apartment’s “quirks”, as Abby calls them, at least for the time being, but then she’s tiptoeing around the apartment at 5:30Am so she can get to the college in time for her 8AM class, and she forgets to switch on the that. That means that when she turns the shower on the water the hits her is icy cold. She yelps, jumping away from what feels likes thousands of freezing needles hitting her bar skin, and grabs at the shower curtain to steady herself. It falls with a loud crash, and Erin swears because she was _trying to be quiet_. The bathroom door is flung open, and there’s Holtzmann, welding a soldering iron like a weapon, and that makes Erin yelp, again, and fumble for her towel. She isn’t super used to the whole communal bathroom thing. It had taken some getting used to, that people just came in and out of the bathroom while you were in it, and it still startles her every time it happens.

“Whazgoingonwhere’stheattacker?” Holtzmann demands, words coming out in a mangled rush. She’s pulled another all-nighter; late shift at the bar, to come directly home and spend the rest of the night at the kitchen table, making stuff that looks suspiciously like bombs.

“No attacker,” Erin says, gasping, waiting for her heart to resume beating at a reasonable rate. Holtzmann looks disappointed.

“We need to get the water fixed,” Erin says, when Holtzmann doesn’t leave. The silence that had stretched was awkward, and Erin wraps her towel even more tightly around herself. Holtzmann’s eyes light up.

“I’ve been doing some tinkerin’, and I’ve got a nifty little gadget that could solve this problem.” She reaches over and pats the sink, apparently referring to the touchy water system. “Of course, there’s the potential of combusting if it gets wet, but, y’know, it’ll just making showering _spicy_.”

“Holtz,” Erin says, weakly, and Holtzmann rolls her eyes.

“Fi-i-ine,” she drawls, twirling the iron in her hand. “I’ll talk to Rowan.”

She wrinkles her nose as she says his name, lip curling in disgust, and mutters something under her breath that sounds like _why is it always the sad, pale ones?_

Erin pushes cold, wet hair out of her eyes, shivering, and watches as Holtzmann spins around and half walks, half dances out of the bathroom, starting to hum under her breath. Erin rests her head against the wall.

Please don’t let living in this loft kill her, because she really thinks it might.

-

“Professor Gilbert?”

Erin looks up from the podium at the front of the lecture hall, collecting various sticky notes and loose pieces of paper.

“Shawn?” She says, awkwardly jamming her laptop under her arm as she stuffs the papers in the trash can. “What can I help you with?”

“There’s someone in your office,” he says, a confused look on his face. “She gave me this in return for telling you to…uh…” He brandishes a packet of skittles as he trails off awkwardly before mumbling, “get your butt up there.”

Erin’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh, uh…okay. Thank you, Shawn.”

Shawn nods, once, quickly, and all but flees from the room, cheeks flushed. Erin scoops up her briefcase and hurries toward the door, practically running toward her office. People don’t ever really _pop by_ her office. The last time it had happened, she had been humiliated and fired from Colombia, and if something like that is happening, she wants to head it off as fast as possible.

She takes a moment outside her door to take a calming breath, smooth her jacket, and opens the door, smiling as serenely as possible even while her heart pounds, anxiety broaching in the corners of her mind.

She’s expecting a frowning, older man in a suit. Instead, she finds a wild-haired blonde in paint-splattered overalls and a crop-top, lounging in her chair, feet up on the tabletop while she fiddles with the tiny spinning model of the solar system that resides on Erin’s desk. Holtzmann grins at Erin as she steps forward.

“Thought I’d pop by and say ‘ello,” She says in an awful British accent, taking her boots off the table so she can spin around in the chair. “I was in the neighborhood.” Mid rotation, she points to a silver duffle bag in the corner, clearly stuffed full. “Super close to campus, and I thought hey, why not go and find Erin? Then I remembered that there’s a bakery right down the street that makes amazing cake, and I want cake, too, and there was a dilemma for a second.”

“And I won?” Erin asks. Watching Holtzmann spin is making her dizzy, so she’s relieved when Holtz stops.

“Noooo,” Holtz says, drawing the word out long. “I thought, why not do both? Go and kidnap Erin and then eat cake? Win-win.” She pops up out of the chair. “Also, I don’t have my wallet.”

Erin can only watch as Holtz scoops her laptop and briefcase out of her hand, flinging them in the general direction of the desk, and steers her toward the door, one arm wrapped around her, pinning Erin’s arms (and, therefore, Erin) to Holtz’s side.

“So, I’m just supposed to buy you cake?” Erin asks, although there’s no irritation in her voice.

“Yep!” Holtzmann says, cheerfully, “It’s a side effect of being my friend. Buying me cake. Also, my cheesesteaks.”

They’re gathering attention as they walk across campus, the students staring. Erin knows they probably look like an odd pair, but for some reason, she doesn’t really care. Holtzmann, mid-conversation, catches the attention of a small group of girls, and when she winks, they all turn bright red, giggling nervously and turning hastily away.

“Holtz!” Erin scolds, and the engineer tips her head back to stare at Erin, a grin on her face.

“What?”

“Don’t flirt with my students! It’s unprofessional.”

“Whaaaat?”

Erin can’t help but smile.

-

They do go and eat cake, and Erin pays for it. Holtzmann dances away down the sidewalk, blowing her a kiss as she leaves, waggling her eyebrows seductively as she shouts that she’ll pay Erin back later. Erin laughs and waves even as she blushes from the stares, and stands there for a second, watching the woman bounce her way down the sidewalk.

She had fun. She really did. She’s regretting the heels she chose to wear that day, sure, because now her feet ache from the walk. As soon as she’s in the loft she takes them off, wincing at both the pain and the instant relief.

“Abby?” She calls out, heels hanging from her fingers. “Are you here?”

The speed that Abby comes around the corner is mildly alarming, and Erin steps back. She gets even more alarmed when Abby flings her arms around her, pulling her into a bone crushing hug.

“Erin! It’s been too long! You should have called to say that you were in LA!”

“Um,” Erin says, and Abby hisses,

“Rowan’s here to fix the water, and he doesn’t know you live here.” She links arms with Erin, tugging her around the corner, still talking. “If you had called, I would have gotten stuff ready! It’s so good to see you! Where are you staying?”

Abby half pushes, half leads her around the corner, and Erin’s eyes are drawn to a man standing in the middle of the kitchen, wearing jeans and a hoodie, a scowl on his face. The way his eyes flick up and down her body makes her uncomfortable, and she instinctively clenches her fists.

“Erin?” Abby nudges an elbow into her side. “Where are you staying?” She forces the words out through gritted teeth, and Erin starts.

“Oh! An…an Airbnb. Down a couple of blocks.” She clears her throat, fully aware of how horrible a liar she is. “Cute little place. Lots of…pots.”

“Pots?”

“Of plants,” Erin says lamely, mentally kicking herself. Abby shoots her a look, and Erin prays that she’s not blushing.

Rowan grumbles something under his breath, picking up a toolbox off the floor.

“Hot water’s fixed,” he says, glaring at them so fiercely that Erin wonders if she’s done something to offend him. He stops in front of Abby, and Erin, who Abby still has a firm grip on, can feel her lean back.

“Have you put any consideration into my offer?”

“NO,” Abby says, firmly, and Rowan glares again. Erin can hear the door slam as he leaves, and Abby groans, letting Erin go. She scratches at her arms, and Erin can see her shudder.

“I always feel like everything is so _dirty_ after he’s been in the apartment,” she complains, and spins to look at Erin. “I’ve been dealing with him for the last two hours. I need a drink. Do you need a drink?”

“It’s four thirty in the afternoon.”

“I know,” Abby says, and shudders again. “But Holtzmann’s shift started half an hour ago and Patty tends to go to the bar to hang out after work.”

There’s a headache starting to throb behind Erin’s eyes, a mix of a long day and also a lunch of cake (delicious, yes, but not very healthy), and the thought of being in the stuffy bar makes her wince, but at the same time…

“Okay.”

“Great.” Abby claps her hands. “I’m driving.”

-

The bar is pretty much dead. Holtzmann doesn’t really mind, honestly, because while it does mean less customers, it means that she can hang out with the trio on the other side of the bar. Abby and Patty are both laughing, beers in front of them, and Erin is slightly off to the side, hands curled around a glass of ginger beer, listening with a smile on her face.

Holtz leans against the bar in front of her, as close to her face as she can get without Erin noticing, and whispers Erin’s name.

Erin startles, narrowly managing to prevent herself from spilling her ginger beer, and giggles. “Oh!”

Her cheeks are flushed. She’s always blushing, Holtz has noticed, and she finds it kind of endearing. Cute, really. She reaches up and pokes Erin’s cheek. “Hey, Erin. How was Rowan?”

Erin bats her hands away, and in that time Abby has directed her stool in Holtzmann’s direction.

“Terrible. As always.” She tips her head back and swallows the last of the beer in her glass, and Patty, who’s barely halfway through hers, laughs. “He asked me on a date not once, but three times, and called me a stupid bitch when I refused for the third time. I want to punch him. I swear, the next time I see him I will punch him.”

She glances down at the bar as she says this, and her gaze settles on the soda cup in front of Holtz. “Holtz. You can drink for free. Why aren’t you?”

Holtzmann laughs. “Because one, I’m technically not supposed to drink while on duty,” she says, amusement bubbling in her chest. “and two, someone has to stay sober to fight Rowan later.”

“Damn right,” Patty grumbles.

They lapse into silence, which Erin breaks.

“So,” she says, fiddling with her bracelet. “How did you all meet?”

Holtz is beginning to get the impression that Erin doesn’t really do well with long silences.

“Abs and I were neighbors when we were kids,” Patty says, clapping Abby on the shoulder. “Best friends since childhood and all that.”

Abby nods. “And I met Holtz through school. Before I got hired at the college I was doing some small, freelance stuff, and I needed a lap partner. Holtzy answered.”

“And she and Abby decided to share an apartment, I moved to LA a month later, and here we are,” Patty says. “And I’m now stuck living with y’all.”

“And she regrets it every day,” Holtzmann says cheerfully.

“Nah, girl, y’all add just the right amount of crazy to my life. I like it.”

Holtzmann leans over the bar to grab Patty’s hand, and, in doing so, she knocks over Abby’s glass. Abby grumbles, and Holtzmann twists, torso halfway up on the bar counter.

“Holtzy sorry,” she says, in the squeaky, almost childish voice she knows annoys Patty to no end. Patty scowls. “Holtzy won’t do it again.”

“STOP THAT.”

Erin just sits back and watches everything with a smile on her face. Holtzmann grins.

If she thinks they’re entertaining now, she hasn’t seen anything yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, I'm sorry, this is totally a filler chapter, but it's also literally THE ONLY chapter I had no notes on before I started writing this. Which is why it's so short. And why it took me longer than three days to write.
> 
> I'M SORRY I PROMISE EVERYTHING AFTER THIS GETS SO MUCH BETTER.
> 
> (also, my friend has a really creepy neighbor, who is inspiration for Rowan/Remy)


	3. There's Two of Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The New Girl Thanksgiving episodes are PURE GOLD, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, which is why I naturally had to include one or two story lines from them in this 'fic. This is mostly based off the episodes "Thanksgiving" and "Thanksgiving III".

 

Erin has been living in LA for almost four years, now, and she still can’t get over how weird the seasons are. The concept of fall seems to be nonexistent; it doesn’t get any cooler, everything just turns brown and dies, and Erin can still walk around in shorts and t-shirts perfectly comfortably (not that she does, but still). Abby, Patty, and Holtzmann though, all transition into jeans and sweatshirts (or, in Holtzmann’s case, out of overalls and crop-tops, and into overalls and long-sleeved shirts), as if it had gotten cooler.

In fact, the only reason Erin really registers it’s almost Thanksgiving is that her students start talking about how relieved they are that they’re getting a break. It takes her about ten seconds and a quick swipe through her phones meticulously maintained calendar before she realizes.

Thanksgiving is _tomorrow_.

And she panics.

-

“Okay, I’m pretty sure I got the last turkey in all of LA, but that doesn’t matter because I have it.”

Erin drops the frozen turkey onto the counter with a loud thud, shaking out her arms once she does. She’d been cradling the thirty-pound turkey to her chest the entire ride up the elevator, and not only were her arms aching, but the cold had seeped into her chest. She shivers and rubs her arms, shifting from foot to foot.

Patty, from her place on the couch, raises an eyebrow. “Erin, baby, we appreciate that you went to the trouble, but I feel like you’re missing a vital piece of information here.”

“Yeah,” Holtzmann says, hanging over the back of the couch. “We don’t really do Thanksgiving.”

The words are punctuated by a scantily-clad girl screaming on the TV screen, as a terrible CGI monster rips her apart with sprays of fake blood. Erin wrinkles her nose. She’s not the hugest fan of The Holtzmann and Tolan Wednesday Night Horror Movie Watch-a-thon, as so christened by its namesakes, and she turns so she doesn’t have to see the screen.

“You don’t…do Thanksgiving?”

“No,” Patty says. “We watch movies, drink beer, then go to Best Buy for Black Friday.”

“But…” Erin’s struggling to wrap her head around the idea. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

Holtzmann tilts her head. “I mean, we sort of do Thanksgiving. We spend it with each other, but we don’t have turkey and stuff. We order Chinese from Zhu’s and watch Abby flirt with Bennie.”

“I DO NOT FLIRT WITH BENNIE!”

Erin jumps at the yell from behind her. Abby appears around the corner, hair wet, towel around in shoulders, and in sweatpants, brandishing a tube of toothpaste at Holtzmann in a threatening manner. Holtzmann cackles loudly, and Patty shoves her, gently, and Holtzmann collapses with a theatrical bonelessness into a pile of pillows. Patty meets Erin’s eyes and shrugs. “Sorry, Erin, but none of us really want to go to the trouble of cooking a turkey that would feed twenty when there were only three, or four now, I guess, of us.”

“I can do it.” The words are out of Erin’s mouth before she can stop them, and she mentally kicks herself as soon as they leave her lips. She can’t cook. The last time she tried she ended up burning an entire lasagna to an inedible crisp, which she hadn’t even been aware was possible. But, damn it, words keep spilling from her mouth like she opened the floodgates. “I already have the turkey, and green beans and like five pounds of potatoes and sweet potatoes and marshmallows and pie shells and pumpkin puree-“

Holtz perks up. “Marshmallows?”

“I don’t want to waste it, and consider it a thank you for letting me stay in your loft.”

“You pay rent,” Abby points out, rubbing her wet hair with her towel. Erin waves a hand.

“I know, but it’s _Thanksgiving_ , and I already have all the stuff.” Erin looks pleadingly at her three roommates.

Patty breaks first. She sighs, loudly. “Okay, fine. But you have to let at least one of us help you, y’hear? I’m not letting y’all run yourself into the ground.”

Holtz raises a hand. “I have a nifty little baby cooking up in my lab- don’t glare at me, Abby, it’s my bedroom I can do what I want with it -and I’d be perfect for cooking a turkey. You didn’t happen to buy dry ice, did you?”

“Um, no?” Erin says, hesitantly.

Holtz _tisks_ , giving Erin a reproachful look. “Er-Bear. You have just missed out on the prime opportunity to cook a turkey using only dry ice, hairspray, and a blowtorch.”

“Is that possible?” Patty asks in horror, and Holtz waggles her eyebrows.

“It’s not too late to find out, Pattycakes,” she says gleefully. “On a completely _unrelated_ note, Erin, could you drive me to the nearest large grocery store?”

“HOLTZMANN, NO.”

“Holtzmann _yes_ ,” she crows, flinging herself off the back of the couch. She hits the ground with a thud and pops up with her yellow-tinted glasses askew and a huge grin on her face. She links arms with Erin, dragging her toward the bags piled on the kitchen island.

“Now, I heard something about marshmallows…”

-

Music thuds in the kitchen, and Erin watches as Holtz part hip-thrusts, part moonwalks across the kitchen, a marshmallow stuffed in each cheek, the sweet potato casserole apparently on its way to the oven. It’s 8AM on Thanksgiving morning, and Erin’s already been up for almost three hours. About an hour ago Abby had shuffled from her room, looked at the rapidly-forming mess in the kitchen, grunted, and gone back to bed. Patty had yet to appear. Even Holtzmann, who had been up for hours, was still in her pajamas (leggings an ancient, holey t-shirt). She didn’t seem tired, though. She alternated singing to the music and dancing. There’s a lot of hip movement involved, and more than one seductive come-hither motion in Erin’s direction, which she ignores (for the most part).

At one point, Erin had given Holtz the job of crushing pecans for a pie, and Holtz had taken to it with gusto, forgoing the food processor and instead electing to hit them aggressively with a rolling pin, gleefully hurling ridiculous insults at them as she did. It’s distracting. But it’s not a bad kind of distracting. Erin can’t quite put her finger on it, but something about this distracting is very, very nice.

She returns her attention to the computer screen in front of her. The turkey sits in a pot beside her. She pokes it with a wooden spoon. The idea of touching it raw makes her skin crawl.

Which is how, five minutes later, she finds herself attempting to pull the giblets out the turkey using kitchen tongs. She’s falling miserably.

At one point Holtz wanders over, watching in an amusement as Erin twists the tongs inside of the cavity, pulling faces the entire time.

“Need help?” Holtz offers, finally, and Erin drops the tongs in relief. The relief turns to horror when Holtz reaches her _bare arm_ into the turkey, pulling out the bag out giblets out.

“Holtzmann!” She gasps, and retches a little bit at the sight of Holtzmann up to her forearm in the raw bird. Holtzmann grins.

“Does this gross you out, Gilbert?” She asks, dropping the bag of giblets on the table. She reaches for Erin’s arm with her unwashed hand, and Erin scrambles backwards.

“Holtz, no!” Her stomach turns at the thought of touching skin that just touched the raw meat. She scoops up the tongs and brandishes them like a weapon, keeping Holtzmann at arm’s reach. Holtzmann spends a couple of seconds trying to touch Erin, but eventually gives up and washes her hands, still smirking.

Erin does, too, but just because the sheer thought of reaching inside a raw turkey makes her itch. She washes all the way up to her elbows, just to be safe.

-

“I feel bad, Abby,” Holtzmann says. She pokes moodily at the bowl of mashed potatoes with a wooden spoon. They were Patty’s creation, and they smelled amazing. Still hot, and buttery and creamy and garlicy. She knew they were delicious, because when Patty wasn’t looking, she had stolen a spoonful.

Abby’s stirring a pot of cranberry sauce, the smell tart and sweet all at once. If she really concentrates, she can pick up the smallest of citrusy zing, coming from the cutting board of butchered lemons next to the stove. It makes her stomach growl.

“Why do you feel bad?” Abby asks patiently. She sips from a glass of wine as she cooks, her glasses low on her nose, and she’s humming softly. She looks relaxed for the first time in a long time, and Holtz suddenly remembers all the stories Abby has of growing up cooking with her grandparents, and how much she loved it.

“I didn’t do anything. I haven’t contributed anything to this feast.”

“You helped Erin earlier,” Abby points out, but Holtz shakes her head. Her stomach rumbles, again, and she eyes the mashed potatoes, one corner of her mind wondering if she could sneak another spoonful or too, and if Patty would notice.

“I put marshmallows on a sweet potato casserole and hit pecans with a rolling pin,” Holtz says. She leans around Abby to poke her spoon into the saucepan in front of her. Abby flaps her hands at her, and Holtz dances away, sticking the spoonful of cranberries into her mouth, sucking in a breath from the hotness.

“Serves you right,” Abby grumbles as Holtz waves her hands in pain (it feels like her taste buds are being seared slowly off). She pokes at the berries in the pot. “I don’t know, Holtz. You could see if we have anything in the fridge. I don’t think we do, but it’s worth checking.”

Holtz doesn’t need to hear another word. She yanks open the door, bottles in the side rattling. Most of the stuff in the fridge is either neatly labeled (Erin’s doing) or of a questionable age and/or substance, considering that they all pretty much live exclusively off take-out and pizza. She thinks that if it had been Abby or Patty doing the majority of the cooking, she wouldn’t be so worried about contributing something, but there’s something about Erin that makes Holtz want to impress her. Maybe it has something to do with her stuffy professor outfits and tiny bow-ties. Or the way that she smiles when she likes something. Or from Holtz’s desire to impress any and all science teachers in any way possible.

That. It was that. Not the second thing. Noooo.

She find the container at the back of the fridge. She opens the crunchy Styrofoam, and she grins in delight at the find. “Poached salmon!”

“Bar leftovers?” Abby leans over, wrinkling her nose. “I thought Patty told you to stop bringing those home.”

“What Patty knows won’t hurt her,” Holtz replies cheerfully, rummaging in the cupboards for some sort of platter. The salmon smells kind of funky, and has an odd, grayish-pink tinge to it, but she plops it on the serving plate anyways.

“Holtz, I’m pretty sure that fish will give anyone who even looks at it salmonella.”

“Relax,” Holtz says, waving her hand dismissively. “Erin hates fish. She told me herself. She won’t eat it, she’ll just think I made it. And I did make it, so that’s not lying. I made it on my kitchen shift. Like a week ago.”

The look Abby gives Holtz is just slightly too knowing, and it makes Holtz uncomfortable even though she’s not entirely sure what it’s about. She digs in the draws until she finds a butter knife with a decorative handle, tosses it on the plate next to the salmon, and pokes at it until the three filets are arranged at an angle. She grins, hoisting it up. “Perfect.”

She hums as she deposits it on the table. Patty, who’s setting the table, wrinkles her nose, giving Holtz a disgusted look, but doesn’t say anything.

-

Erin stands in front of her mirror, tugging at the hem of her dress. She’s beginning to wonder if it’s too much, to wear a dress, and if she should be wearing her jeans and the MIT hoodie that Holtz let her borrow earlier. It’s not a particularly formal dress; it’s a beige and kind of shapeless, and has a large, floppy bow at the waist that prevents it from being completely sack-like. It’s plain, but still. Should she be wearing a dress?

Erin twists in front of the mirror, running her fingers through her still slightly damp hair. Maybe the dress and a shower were overkill. It was only going to be the four of them, after all, and she doesn’t think any of them are going to be dressed up.

But, before she can talk herself out of it, she leaves the room and heads towards the dining room. She’s instantly relived when she takes in what the other three women are wearing.

Abby’s in a high-waisted black skirt and a dark red sweater, Patty’s in dark jeans, a flowy blouse, and red heels that make Erin’s feet hurt just looking at them, and Holtz is in black and white checkered pants, a white button-up, suspenders, and a bow-tie the same color as her pants. She hooks a finger around the bridge of her glasses and pulls them down her nose, grinning.

“Milady,” she says, pulling back a chair at the table. “Your meal has arrived.”

Erin feels her cheeks start to heat, but the heat drains away when Holtz does the exact same thing for Patty and Abby, before sitting down herself. She lays her napkin on her lap with a flourish, winking at Erin.

Now Erin’s really blushing, and she stares down at her plate.

Abby, who’s at the head of the table, clears her throat, and everyone at the table turns to her. She stands up.

“I don’t think any of us are wanting to do the whole “go around the table and say three things you’re thankful for thing,” Abby says, and there’s a murmur of agreement. She grins. “So, I’m just going to say that I’m grateful for you dorks and leave it at that.”

“Here, here,” Holtzmann says, deepening her voice, raising her glass. She’s drinking what looks like beer out of a crystal wine glass, and it’s a strangely endearing thing to Erin. Patty lifts hers, too.

“I second- Ow! Holtzy! -Okay, fine, _third_ it. I love y’all.”

“Cheers,” Erin says, because it’s the only thing she can think of saying, and they clink glasses.

Erin had somehow managed not to ruin the food. Sure, the turkey is a bit too dark at parts, and the marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole are leaning more toward black then golden brown, and, yes, she had forgotten to add salt and pepper and olive oil when she roasted the green beans, but everything still tastes good, especially smothered in Abby’s gravy and cranberry sauce, and Patty’s mashed potatoes are so good she thinks she could keep eating them forever.

She’s just finished her second plate when she notices a small platter, tucked slightly out of the way. She leans forward. “Ooh, is that poached salmon?”

“Yep!” Holtzmann says, grinning. “Made by yours truly.”

Beside Erin, Abby starts coughing, and Erin looks at her in concern. Abby waves her concern off. There’s the sound of a gentle thud, and Holtz, on Abby’s other side, winces, but Erin ignores this. Instead, she scoops up one of the salmon filets, plopping them on the plate.

Holtz’s expression freezes. “Oh, uh, you don’t have to do that. I know you don’t like fish.”

That’s true. Erin doesn’t like fish. It’s just too… _fishy_. But she shrugs, using her fork to cut it into pieces. “But you put the hard work into making it, and neither Abby or Patty are eating it, and I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

She scoops a bit of salmon into her mouth. There’s an odd flavor, something almost...sharp? She takes another, bigger bite, eyebrows furrowing.

Holtz makes an odd sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “Really, Er, you don’t have to do that.”

Erin takes another bite. It’s bugging her, what that taste is, and she can’t place it. “Really, it’s fine.” Another bite.

“Erin, stop eating it,” Holtz says, a strange tension in her voice, and Erin looks up, fork in her mouth. She takes it out.

“Why?” She rolls the taste of the salmon around in her mouth. Holtz makes a noise, and Erin looks at her. “You made it!”

“But…” Holtz says, and Erin shakes her head.

“Holtz! You made this! I’m going to eat it!” There’s still almost a third of the fish on her plate, and, she puts it into her mouth all at once to make a point.

“Erin, spit that out!” Holtz lunges across the table, nearly knocking over the wine bottle, just as Erin swallows. Both Abby and Holtz gasp in horror.

“What?” Erin asks. She takes a sip of wine, attempting to wash the taste of fish (which is strangely metallic) out of her mouth.

“That…those were bar leftovers,” Holtz says weakly, “Kind of old bar leftovers.”

Abby nods, too, and Patty gasps, and looks at Erin like Erin’s going to keel over right at the table.

“What?!” Erin gasps. “Why would you put it on the table?”

“I felt bad that you guys were doing all the work for dinner, and I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t contribute!” Holtz says, the words all coming out in a rush, and Erin frowns. She wonders if she’s imaging her stomach start to cramp.

“Holtz, you helped me earlier!” Erin says, one hand going to her stomach. Holtz winces.

“I’m sorry! It was stupid, I know.”

“Damn it, Holtzy!” Patty says, looking at Erin like someone might look at a viciously barking dog, “If you poison our new roommate, I’m not going to bail y’all out of jail!”

“She didn’t poison me,” Erin says at the same time Abby nods in agreement with Patty. Still, Erin pushes her plate away. She isn’t hungry anymore.

About twenty minutes later, she starts throwing up, and she can’t stop.

-

“Hey, Er.” Holtz perches on the edge Erin’s hospital bed. At maybe 10:30, after almost seven hours of puking and Erin turning a sickly gray color, they had decided it was probably best to bring her to the hospital. The hospital had agreed, and now they’d booked Erin in overnight for observation as they pumped her full of fluids and anti-nausea medication. “Sorry I almost killed you.”

“You didn’t almost kill me,” Erin protests, sitting up in her bed. She winces as she does, hand going to her stomach.

“Yeah, I did,” Holtz says, and she knows the guilt she feels is bleeding out into her voice. “Erin Gilbert: Died after eating week-old bar leftover salmon that her idiot roommate put on the table for Thanksgiving.”

Erin laughs, then winces again. “Hey. At least you’re apologizing.”

“I guess.” Holtz picks at her nails. “Still doesn’t make it better, though.”

“It kind of does.” Erin reaches out, pats Holtz’s arm. “At least you realize that it was a stupid thing to do and you are going to be paying me back for this for the rest of your life. I feel like I puked up my intestines.”

“Yeah, you were throwing up a lot.” Holtz laughs, uncomfortably. “It was scary.”

The door of the room is flung open, and Abby and Patty come bursting in. Both are carrying the reusable shopping bags clearly stolen from Erin’s car. They’re both laughing, and they plop down onto the end of Erin’s bed.

“We’re sorry we never finished dinner,” Abby says as she starts pulling things out of the bag. “But, as of right now, it’s…” she checks her watch. “11:52PM, so it’s still Thanksgiving.”

Patty grins. “We raided the vending machines. We come with snacks.” She holds up a plain, silvery-gray package, the word SNACK written in black block letters on it.

Abby tosses Holtz a package of gummy bears, which she snatches out of the air. It crinkles beneath her fingers, and she glances at Erin, hesitating. But Erin’s grinning.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to eat again,” she says, reaching for a green and white soda can. “But I’ll take a ginger ale.”

Holtz scoops up another can, this one root beer, and holds it up. “To Thanksgiving, and me not murdering our friend!”

“To us!” Patty says, clinking her can with Holtz’s.

“TO US!”

Holtz leans over to Erin as Abby and Patty scuffle over the single, mini package of Oreos. “I bet you’re glad you moved in with us now. After I almost poisoned you.”

“Stop saying you almost poisoned me.” Erin knocks her shoulder gently against Holtz’s. “But I am glad. This is way better than where I was living before.” She smiles as she takes the package of plain crackers that Patty passes her. “Is it weird that even though I feel like my insides have been turned, well, inside out, it also feels like my stomach is digesting itself?”

“You’re hungry? I think I may have some leftovers from the bar. Poached salmon, want some?”

“HOLTZ.”

“Too soon?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super disappointed that I couldn't figure out a way to have them put the turkey in the dryer, but while I do think it sounds like something that Abby and Holtz would do, I don't think Patty or Erin would let them, so, no defrosting of the turkey in the dryer. 
> 
> Also, I don't think it's ever been said or not if the bar actually has food, but if it does, I think it's very questionable food (I mean, even Nick, who loves it to bits, has called it a dive a couple of times), and bar leftovers would probably be very, very sketchy. Especially any fish leftovers.
> 
> And, I'm super excited, because the next chapter introduces our favorite drinking game, True American! I'm having so much fun writing it it's slightly ridiculous. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://ainewrites.tumblr.com/), and I'm always happy to talk, although you kind of have to seek me out because I am shy. But I promise I will befriend you!


	4. What's the Big Deal? (Suck It Up and French a Little)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (and chapter title) is inspired by the episode "Cooler"

The name of the game? True American.

Holtzmann runs her tongue over her teeth and grins, clutching the can of beer in one hand. Abby’s standing on the table, holding her own can of beer high. She’s yelling the rules, and Erin, who’s beside Patty on the other side of the room, looks horribly confused. Holtzmann doesn’t blame her.

It’s a surprise, but Kevin doesn’t look confused at all.

Kevin is the entire reason they’re playing. He’d called Erin earlier that night, asking for a ride; apparently he was at an addition or a photoshoot or something, and he’d gotten in a fight and his ride at bailed. And then locked him out of the apartment they shared. So, Erin had taken him to the loft.

She had promised that he’s going back first thing in the morning, and apparently this has happened before and they always forget what they were fighting about by the morning. Holtzmann thinks this is a pretty accurate statement, since the first thing Kevin did when he walked into the loft was cover his eyes because the blender was making a loud noise. And, after a bemused question from Abby, Holtz now knows that he took his lenses out of his glasses because they kept getting dirty, and now he doesn’t need to clean them.

Holtzmann watches him across the room. Even _she_ can tell he’s attractive (Abby, bless her little aroace soul, had looked horrified when Erin mentioned how he’s nice to look at), but combined with his goofy puppy dog personality, Holtz kind of wonders how he even survives. And if they should even be giving him alcohol.

But it’s been ages since they played True American, because you need at least five people for a really good game, and now they’re all in the loft at the same time, and Kevin is here, and Abby’s already on the table, and god, True America sound so fun right now.

“Can someone explain the rules to me?” Erin says, looking lost and helpless, but in a cute way.

“It’s like 50% drinking game, 50% life-size candy land,” Abby says.

“Well, more like 75% drinking, 20% candy land, and, by the way, the floor is lava,” Patty says.

Holtz shakes her head. “It’s actually 90% drinking and it’s got a loose candy land-like structure to it.”

“Ready?” Abby asks, grinning around the room. There’s a general murmur of agreement, Erin’s somewhat hesitant, and Abby lifts her beer.

“One, two, three, JFK!” Abby yells, and Holtzmann and Abby pick up the cry enthusiastically, Erin and Kevin pitching in a couple of seconds in.

“FDR!” Holtz cracks open her beer and tips her head back as she swallows. The carbonation stings her sinuousness, infecting her bloodstream, and she takes a running leap up onto the nearest chair. “The floor is lava!” She says gleefully, “If you touch it you lose a turn and have to take off one article of clothing!”

“What?” Erin’s eyes grow wide, but Abby is already shouting.

“All trash belongs…”

“In the junk yard!”

Empty beer cans are flung in the direction of the trash can, and only one (Patty’s) ends up in it. Holtz meets Erin’s eyes across the room, and grins.

Let the game begin.

-

They’re getting progressively drunker way, way faster than Erin thinks is probably healthy. She’s perched on a chair, feeling the buzz of alcohol in her blood, and she’s having fun, which is surprising, because it’s not a very _Erin_ game. It’s wild and has a distinct lack of understandable rules and, yes, lots of alcohol, but her heart is pounding and her cheeks hurt from smiling.

Holtz has been grinning since the game started, and now her cheeks are flushed. She smiles at Erin, tongue between her teeth, and there’s shouting in the background, and Kevin (who picked up the game annoyingly quickly) is shouting about Abe Lincoln and George Washington, and when Holtz answers with what sounds like cherry tree, there’s a flurry of movement off the right, that ends up with Holtz squished on the chair next to her, nearly knocking her off.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Holtzmann breathes in Erin’s ear, and Erin wrinkles her nose even as she laughs. Her skin grows hot where Holtz’s bare arm is touching hers, and she wonders why the temperature of the room suddenly shot up at least ten degrees.

Patty yells in the background. “Education is not preparation for life…!”

“Oh!” Erin’s brain scrambles for the end of the quote. “Education is life itself!”

Patty cheers, and both she and Erin take a deep drink from the rapidly emptying beer can, and Erin eyes the pillow on the floor, at least yard away. She looks at Holtz. Holtz raises an eyebrow.

Erin launches herself off the chair, limbs flailing, and lands solidly on the pillow. Her arms windmill as she struggles to keep her balance, but she keeps her feet below her, managing to keep from falling into the lava/floor.

Holtz is not so lucky. Erin’s sudden movement unbalances her, and with a dramatic keening, tumbles from the chair, Erin having accidently clipped her leg as she jumped. She hits the floor with a thud that makes Erin’s teeth ache, and Erin whips around.

“Holtz! Are you okay?”

Holtz pops up, laughing. Kevin, from the other side of the room, points gleefully.

“Holmen is out!” He says, and Abby and Patty cheer, and all three of them start chanting.

“Off! Off! Off! Off!”

Holtzmann rips off her shirt, and gives a theatrical bow at the whistles. She scoops a beer off the coffee table and tilts her head back as she swallows, and Erin watches the bobbing of her throat, unable to tear her eyes away. Then Holtz climbs out of the red zone and into the yellow zone, onto the couch, and the game resumes.

-

“The count!” Patty is starting to slur a little bit, and she raises her beer can. “The count!”

“The count!” Kevin picks up her cry, and they all scream the numbers at the top of their lungs.

“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE!”

Holtzmann holds three fingers to her forehead, looking around the room. Kevin has all five fingers, Abby two, Patty one. Then she looks at Erin. Erin has three fingers against her forehead. She and Abby realize it at the same time.

“You know what this means!” Abby says. She’s missing her cardigan and one sock, and Holtz can’t remember if it’s because she stepped in lava or just because she lost them over the course of the game.

“Time to go behind the iron curtain!” Patty, Kevin, and Abby surge forward, pushing Holtz and Erin in front of them. They bundle them behind the sliding blue door that separates the doors of Abby and Holtz’s room from the door to Erin’s room and the bathroom, shutting it with a bang.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” They yell enthusiastically on the other side of the door.

Holtz looks at Erin. Erin looks at Holtz. Erin’s hair, her pretty, auburn hair, is tangled, her cheeks flushed, chest heaving.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to kiss you,” Holtz says, “But I have a policy against kissing straight girls.”

“Jillian Holtzmann!” Erin gasps, and draws herself up to her full height. “I am _bisexual_.”

Holtz dissolves in giggles at the sheer indignity in Erin’s voice. Erin pouts, and slides down the door so she’s sitting down. Holtz does the same.

“Really? I thought you were straight as a street lamp. Although, now that I think about it, street lamps aren’t really straight. They kind of…y’know…” Holtz bends her arm, mimicking the curve at the top of a street light.

Erin nods seriously. “Yes,” she says, voice as serious as an extremely drunk person can get it, “I am bisexual. That means I like both boys and girls.”

“I knoooow what bisexual means,” Holtz wines, and they both dissolve in giggles again. The chanting of kiss, kiss, kiss is getting louder, punctuated by the slamming of palms on the door. They lean forward. Their noses bump. Erin’s breath smells like beer.

Holtz licks her chin.

“Ew, Holtz!” Erin pushes her away, and they nearly fall over each other laughing. Erin pushes herself upright, using Holtz’s stomach as leverage. Holtz grunts at the pressure, and then Erin’s propped against the door, pushing her hair out of her face.

“What’s the big deal?” Erin says, waving her hand in a vague gesture. “Let’s just suck it up and French a little.”

Holtzmann laughs so hard her stomach hurts, and Erin giggles a little bit, too. Erin is a giggler when she’s drunk. Holtz decides she’s going to remember this, although she’s _pretty sure_ she’s going to remember nothing from like her third beer on in the morning.

They lean forward again. Noses bump again. And they kiss.

It’s not a _good_ kiss. They’re both way too drunk for it to be a good kiss. It’s messy, more shoving open mouth on top of open mouth. Their teeth clash and there’s entirely too much tongue, and, at one point, Holtz misses Erin’s mouth entirely and gets her chin and the side of her mouth, instead.

The divider is flung open, and they both fall backward in a sprawl of limbs, and stare up at Abby, Patty, and Kevin grinning down at them. Erin and Holtz just laugh.

It takes them a good three tries to get back to their feet.

-

It feels like someone has taken a hammer and is repeatedly hitting the inside of Erin’s skull with it. Erin groans, and when she opens her eyes, the late morning light causes stabs of pain deep in her head, so she closes them again. There’s a movement next to her, and someone groans in her ear. Erin reaches for them instinctively, because, for a moment, she thinks she’s in her bed and it’s Phil next to her. Then she remembers.

Erin flies upright, and Holtz yelps and falls off the couch with a loud thud. Another low groan comes from the floor, and it’s echoed from another corner of the room.

Patty is on the couch, wearing a crown of beer cans and a cape made of an American flag, and she blinks blearily. She and Erin meet each other’s eyes, then she groans, again, louder, and covers her eyes in the crook of her elbow.

Erin swings her legs off the edge of the couch, wincing as her stomach cramps in protest. She can just see over the edge of the couch, to where Abby is curled under the dining room table, covered in a blanket. Kevin is nowhere to be seen, and Erin decides to worry about him later. Instead, she leans over the edge of the couch.

“Holtz?” Her voice cracks, and she clears her throat before trying again. “Holtz? Are you okay?”

“Nooooo,” Holtz moans. She’s not wearing a shirt; she’s only in baggy maroon pants rolled up to her knees and a surprisingly feminine black bra. She sits up, her hair tangled in an even more wild nest than her usual hairstyle. “I think I may be dead.” She licks her lips, and winces. “Although I must be in hell, because I don’t think I could feel this awful in heaven.” She sets blood-shot eyes on Erin. “Although you’re too nice to go to hell, and you’re here, so I have to still be alive.”

Erin just nods. She climbs off the couch and begins inching her way across the loft, picking her away around discarded beer cans and sticky patches of the floor. She pulls open the cupboard for a cup. Her mouth tastes like something died in it, and she’s sure her breath is horrendous.

There’s the soft sound of footsteps behind her, and Erin turns. Holtz is there, face holding a slightly green tinge.

“So,” she says, and there’s an odd catch in her voice. “I think I may have kissed you last night.”

Something in Erin’s brain short-circuits. She can only stare at Holtz, water glass halfway to her mouth, eyes wide.

“Um,” she says when she can finally talk. Holtz winces.

“Look, we were drunk, and I think we went behind the iron curtain- which I’m totally going to kill Abby and Patty for later, by the way -and, well…”

“We were drunk?” Erin supplies. Now that she’s thinking about it, there’s the faintest traces of a memory in the back of her brain, that mostly consist of Holtz licking her mouth. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Holtz leans against the counter in what Erin thinks is an attempt to look relaxed, but really just serves to make her look even more uncomfortable. “I just wanted to make sure things don’t get awkward between us, okay? It was a one-time thing. An accident.”

“A one-time thing,” Erin echoes, and Holtz nods. She takes a deep breath, and plants her hands on her hips.

“Erin Gilbert, I’m sorry I kissed you!” She’s grinning, probably trying give the situation a humorous air, but there’s still a tension in her voice.

Erin nods. “I’m sorry I kissed you,” she says, softly, and the words leave an odd taste in her mouth.

Holtz claps. “Lovely. Now things won’t be awkward. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find my shirt and puke my guts up. Probably not in that order.”

She shuffles out of the kitchen, leaving Erin clutching her water glass to her chest. She chews on her lip, lost in thought (and in the memory of kissing Holtz. It causes a strange feeling in her gut, the memory). Abby, from her position under the table, mutters something that sounds like _kill me_.

Okay, they talked about this, it shouldn’t be awkward, right? They were drunk, they went behind the iron curtain, they kissed, and it’s over. No awkwardness.

-

 _There is all the awkwardness_.

It’s a tangible thing between them, and they can barely look at each other for days afterward. This is kind of a problem, because they tend to orbit each other. Erin gets up as Holtz goes to bed, they eat at the same time, and Erin gets home from her nighttime meetings just as Holtzmann comes home from the afternoon shift at the bar.

They can barely meet each other’s eyes.

The awkwardness comes to a head, though, when one morning they both reach for the same coffee mug. Their fingers brush, and they yank them away so fast that the mug falls from the cupboard and shatters on the floor. Holtz rushes off the first chance she gets to get a broom, and Erin leans down to pick up the large shards of ceramic off the floor.

“What the hell was that?”

Erin looks up. Patty’s sitting at the kitchen island, stabbing a fork at a plate of eggs, looking at Erin like she’s watching a particularly interesting animal in a zoo.

“What was what?” Erin asks as casually as she can, although she knows she doesn’t do a good job when Patty arches an eyebrow.

“That. What was that?” Patty waves her hand at Erin then in the direction Holtz had all but fled in. “Y’all have been acting weird for almost a week now.”

Erin hesitates, but Patty gives her a look and everything comes spilling out. “Remember how we went behind the iron curtain when we played True American?”

“No.” Patty shakes her head, then throws up her hands in defense. “Baby, I don’t remember most of that night. We were _wasted_ , remember? I’m pretty sure I woke up still drunk.”

“Well, we did,” Erin says. Her fingers twitch, and she touches fingertip to fingertip. She can feel the swirling crowd of anxiety creeping in close, and she tries to fend it off. “And we kissed. And it’s been awkward since then.”

“Why?” Patty asks, simply. “Because you’re straight?”

“No,” Erin shakes her head. “I’m not straight. I mean, I’m bisexual, and I’ve had girlfriends before. It’s nothing about the fact that it was a girl, or even that I was drunk. I mean, we’ve all kissed random guys at college parties before.”

Patty takes a bite of scrambled egg. “How is this any different than kissing random guys at college parties?”

“Because it’s _Holtz_ ,” Erin says, waving her hands. “She’s not a random guy at a college party! She’s a roommate, and my friend.”

“And?” Patty asks shrewdly, and Erin glares.

“And that’s it,” Erin says firmly, “And that’s why it’s awkward! Friends don’t go around kissing friends, even if they’re drunk and playing a game.”

Patty shrugs. “The only reason why this is awkward is because you’re making it awkward. Just go and talk about it, and get over it, and life goes on as usual.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“But it is. Y’all are the ones making it complicated.” Patty pushes her stool back and stands up, picking up her plate. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to work.” She pauses as she reaches Erin. “Talk to Holtzy. Because I don’t know how much longer Abby and I can watch this awkwardness. It’s almost painful.”

-

Later that day, Erin stands outside Holtzmann’s room. Every time she raises her hand to knock, it falls back down. She doesn’t know where to start. And she’s so, so close to walking away when the door flies open, and Holtz almost crashes into her. She jumps backward at the last second, but they’re still a bit too close for it to be truly comfortable. The edge of Holtz’s large, silver duffle bag smacks into Erin’s leg, and she winces even though it didn’t really hurt.

“Hello,” Holtz says, a smirk turning up the corner of her lips. Erin takes a step backward, twisting her hands together.

“So,” she says uncomfortably, “It’s been awkward.”

Holtz looks at her, head cocked to the side, not agreeing, not disagreeing, just listening.

“And I don’t want it to be awkward. And I think it’s awkward because we’re trying to pretend like it didn’t happen, but I think that’s what’s making it awkward. So maybe we could say yes it happened and just move on?” The words come out in a rush, and Erin can’t quite meet Holtz’s eyes.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Holtz nods, slowly. “It happened.” She pats Erin’s arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some dumpsters to sort through.”

She’s almost all the way down the hall before she turns it around. “Oh, by the way?”

“Yeah?” Erin asks, the instant rush of relief taking a weight off her shoulder she wasn’t even aware was there.

“I lied.”

“About what?”

“That I was sorry that I kissed you.” Holtz is wearing a full on smirk, now. “I’m not. Even marvelously drunk, you’re a veeeeeery good kisser.” She winks, gives Erin a two-fingered salute, and bops away, singing along to the faintest traces of a song still echoing out from Holtz’s room.

Erin isn’t sure how long she stands in the hallway, mouth open in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LAST I GET TO POST THE TRUE AMERICAN CHAPTER. I've been trying to get my friends to play True American with me (with soda, though, not alcohol because A: we're all underage, and B: I'm pretty sure that the amount of alcohol they drink in the game could kill you), but they're all declined. So I get to write a game of True American. 
> 
> I found this [handy dandy website](http://www.trueamericanrules.com/) that lists the rules of True American, and I added a couple that I remembered from the show (AKA, the Iron Curtain). And I had waaay to much fun writing this, but, y'know...it was _fun_.


	5. The Only Way To Get Through It Is To Get Through It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter and chapter title inspired by the episode "Injured"

Erin really doesn’t want to know why Holtzmann is on a ladder precariously propped against the side of the building, or why she’s wearing her goggles and has her soldering iron on as she does, but here she is, up a ladder ten feet in the air. Abby and Patty are up on the fire escape directly above her, looking at her from above, and Erin stands below her, watching in equal parts fascination and apprehension.

“Holtz?” She steps closer, tilting her chin back so she can look up at the engineer. “What’re you doing?”

“This and that!” Holtz answers cheerfully. “Poooooosibly installing a video camera to the bottom of the fire escape.”

“What? Why?” Their neighborhood isn’t exactly dangerous; it’s full of artists and preppy hipsters. Even the homeless population is pretty low, except for Outside Dave, and he’s harmless. Holtz twists so she can look down at Erin.

“So I can watch the cats, Erin!” She says like it should be obvious, and Erin remembers the orange tabby that lives in the alleyway, that Holtz always tries to pet even though it bites her whenever she touches it. “I need to make sure they’re safe.”

Erin sends a questioning look to Abby, who shrugs and mouths _hasn’t slept in forty-two hours_. That explains the wild light in Holtz’s eyes, then. And, at that moment, Holtz makes a gesture that is just a bit too broad, and the entire ladder tilts. Erin lunges to steady it, and as she does she accidently knocks her hip against it.

It happens in slow motion. The ladder falling, and Holtz, limbs flailing, falling after it. The ladder lands with a loud crash and Holtz hits the pavement a second later, narrowly missing landing on the sharp metal. She yelps, loudly, and Erin gasps, rushing over. There’s the pounding of feet on the metal fire escape as Patty and Abby rush down.

Erin falls to her knees beside Holtz. She’s making a wheezing sound, and Erin panics, reaching for her, before she realizes that the sound is a breathless laughter. Abby and Patty skid to a stop above them, and Holtz grabs Erin’s shoulder to pull herself into a sitting position. Then she winces, and lies back down.

“Uh, no. Ow. Not doing that.” She grins at Erin. “Only you, Gilbert, would injure me while trying to keep me from getting injured.”

“Holtz?” Abby asks, concern bleeding into her voice. “Are you okay?”

“My back smarts a little.” This time, when Holtz tries to sit up, she does, with much wincing and little huffs of pain. She stands up, using the top of Erin’s head as a crutch. “Okay. I’m good.”

She takes a couple of staggering steps, one hand pressed against her lower back. Erin stands up. “Holtz, I think I should take you to the ER.”

“I’m fiiine,” Holtz says breezily, starting to head in the direction of the doors.

Patty follows after her. “Holtzy, you’re walking like a Disney witch. Are you sure we can’t take you to the ER?”

“I don’t do hospitals.” Holtz says, and leans against the wall of the building.

“How about your doctor?” Erin asks. “Can we call your doctor?”

“Don’t have one.”

Erin makes a mental note to talk about _that_ particular piece of information later, and follows after Holtz, who’s still determinedly walking away, despite flinching every time she sets her foot down. She steps in Holtz’s path, and Holtz reluctantly stops, crossing her arms.

“How about I take you to my friend Sadie?” Erin offers. “She has her own private practice and will see you for free for a favor to me, and she’s really nice.”

Holtz sighs. “Okay, but only because I know you guys won’t drop it.” She points a finger at Erin. “And if she isn’t nice, you’ll owe me one. Big time.”

Erin nods eagerly. She takes Holtz’s arm, and leads her in the direction of the garage entrance.

-

It takes Holtz a few minutes to figure out why this doctor’s office felt different, and when it clicks, she wonders how she hadn’t connected the dots before. Ninety percent of the people are waiting, about half of them look pregnant, and the walls are covered in pictures of babies and pregnant woman. Holtz, slouched low in her seat, decidedly un-pregnant, does not fit in with the typical crowd of the waiting room.

She looks at Erin. “Erin.”

Erin doesn’t look up. She’s flicking through a magazine, an air of casual disinterest about her. “Yeah?”

“Is Sadie a gynecologist?”

“No,” Erin says, although she sounds slightly guilty. Holtz raises an eyebrow and waits. Erin puts down her magazine. “She’s an OB-GYN.”

“Er, Er-Bear, while I apricate you bringing me to your doctor friend, I have do not have a problem with my vagina. My vagina is perfectly fine.”

Erin’s cheeks tinge pink. “I know.”

Holtz smirks, and the blush is traveling toward Erin’s hairline, now. “I mean I know that it’s your back that hurts.” She coughs, once. “I’m sorry my only doctor friend is a gynecologist. But you wouldn’t let me take you to the ER!”

“Yeah, because ER doctors are condescending assholes.”

Erin glances quickly around the waiting room. “Okay, but Sadie isn’t an asshole, so be nice to her, please?”

“I wouldn’t be mean to one of your friends,” Holtz says, mildly offended by the idea that she would be. “Un-nice, maybe, but never mean.”

Erin just looks worried.

-

The table smells like disinfectant and fake leather. It’s an unpleasant combination, but in this position, face down on the table, the throbbing in her lower back fades to a dull ache. She knows that Erin takes a picture and sent it to Abby and Patty, judging by the sudden flurry of text notifications, but she doesn’t care.

The door opens, and closes. Holtz turns her head, hair falling into her face. A tall, brown-haired woman in a doctor’s coat and a clipboard under her arm embraces Erin.

“It’s been too long,” She says warmly, and Erin nods.

“It has. How’s your wife?”

That catches Holtz’s attention.

“Wait, so you’re a gynecologist and a lesbian?” She asks, delighted.

“This must be Jillian,” Sadie says, and Holtz gives her the best two-fingered salute as can, despite the awkwardness of her position.

“You must be a _vagenius_ ,” Holtzmann says, grinning, and Sadie just rolls her eyes. Holtz decides that she likes Sadie. She twists to hold out her hand to shake. “Holtzmann. Bartender, avid skier, gluten _full_ , and fellow lady lovin’ lady.”

Sadie just smiles, and gently, applies pressure to parts of Holtz’s back. Holtz grunts in pain, once, and Sadie pulls away.

“Okay, you can flip over.”

Holtz does, using Erin’s arm as leverage.

“So, unofficially, I’m telling you that you have a bruised spine. I’m also unofficially giving you this prescription and telling you unofficially to take one every eight hours.” She gives Holtz a tiny white pill and a paper cup of water. Holtz puts it to her lips.

“Oh, don’t take that,” Sadie says, and Holtz freezes. Erin shakes her head. “Take it.”

“No, don’t take it.”

“She’s kidding, take it.”

“I’m not, don’t take it…”

Holtz puts the pill in her mouth and swallows, feeling it sticking to her throat on the way down, and winces.

“Oh, no,” Sadie says, softly, then hands Holtz a rattling yellow container. Holtz coughs, once, still sure that she can feel a pill in her throat. She takes another, larger sip of water, and Sadie steps forward.

“Wait, take a drink again.”

Eyeing her, Holtz does, and she feels cold, gentle hands pressing on the side of her next.

“Yeah, okay. Holtz, you have a growth in your thyroid.”

Erin freezes, eyes growing wide. “What?”

Sadie nods. “It’s probably nothing, but you should get that checked out. I have a friend who’s a radiologist and I can get you an appointment tomorrow, if you want.”

“Yes, she wants it,” Erin says, and Sadie nods. “Okay. I’ll make the call. Take care, you two.” She squeezes Erin’s arm on the way out. As soon as the door shuts, Holtz speaks up.

“Yeah, I’m not going to that appointment.” She slides off the bed, slipping the pill bottle into the pocket of her trench coat.

“Why?” Erin chases after her as Holtzmann leaves the office. She punches the button for the elevator with more force than is strictly necessary.

“Because I’m not, okay?” Holtz snaps, and Erin leans backward, hurt flashing across her face. Holtzmann instantly feels bad, but she stays silent.

Why she isn’t going…it’s a conversation for another time. One she doesn’t want to have at all. Erin offers to drive her to the bar so she doesn’t have to walk, and Holtz accepts, but other than that, they don’t talk.

The silence is deafening.

-

Erin texts Abby and Patty. Of course she does. And now they line up at the bar, watching as Holtzmann works, albeit at a much slower pace than usual. She’d insisted on showing up for her shift, and now she wipes down the bar counter and pours more nuts into the little bowls, occasionally stopping to make a drink for the slow trickle of customers.

“Did Sadie say what she thinks it is?” Abby asks, quietly so Holtz doesn’t hear, and Erin shakes her head. She stirs her drink with the curly straw that Holtz had jokingly added to her glass.

“No. She just said that she should get it checked out.”

Patty fishes her phone out of her pocket. “I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but…” she types into the search engine on her phone, scrolling for a few minutes. Her soft, sharp inhale makes Erin lean over to stare at the screen.

The word _cancer_ flashes like a beacon, and Abby, on Patty’s other side, sucks in a deep breath. She reaches for Patty’s phone. “Put this away, you can’t let her see this-“

“Can’t let me see what?”

Holtz appears suddenly in front of them. She smiling as she plucks the phone from Abby’s frozen hand, but the smile falls from her face.

“Is this…what this…” she makes a gesture at her throat, “Could be?”

Abby nods, once, sharply, and Erin can see something behind Holtz’s eyes _crack_.

“I’ve got to…I’ve got to go do something,” she mumbles, dropping the cleaning rag on the counter. Patty reaches for her.

“Holtzmann, baby…”

Holtz doesn’t meet their eyes, and she vanishes behind the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen and the storeroom.”

Abby swears under her breath. “This isn’t good.”

Patty shakes her head. “No.”

When they go to find her, fifteen minutes later, hoping to get her to talk, she’s gone. Her phone is left next to her neatly folded trench coat on her desk in the back, but other than that, there’s no trace of her anywhere in the bar.

-

It’s almost midnight, and they still haven’t found her. Erin clutches Holtz’s jacket to her chest. They’ve gone everywhere they can think of; the loft, the community center, the dog park, both her favorite and second favorite bakeries, long since closed. And she’s nowhere. She’s vanished.

Patty rubs her forehead, eyebrows creased. Abby looks like she’s about to cry as she texts everyone she can think of, desperately hoping that Holtz appeared at someone’s house, hoping to crash for the night. There’s nothing. It’s radio silence. Holtz has vanished.

“Is there anywhere else that Holtz might have gone?” Erin asks, desperately. The sick feeling of anxiety and fear has been roiling in her stomach for the last four hours, spiking at every far-off siren. “Anywhere she might have mentioned that she likes in passing?”

Patty shakes her head. “No. I mean, other than Rebecca’s, but…” she exhales. “I don’t think she would, but I’m going to call her anyway.”

Erin and Abby wait with baited breath, but Patty comes back, shaking her head. “Rebecca hasn’t heard from her.”

Erin groans, collapsing against the side of the car. Abby pauses.

“I just thought of something,” she says, slowly. “I might be wrong, but…maybe. It’s the only place we haven’t checked.”

“Let’s go.”

-

Abby was right.

Holtzmann is sitting in the sand, arms wrapped around her knees, staring out at the water. Both Patty and Abby go out, one at a time, to talk to her, but they both come back shaking their heads. Patty, when she comes back, nudges Erin gently.

“You go, baby.”

“Me?” Erin asks, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. “I’ve only know her for like, four months.”

“It’s worth a try,” Abby says, softly. “She won’t talk to either of us.”

So Erin does. She pulls off her heels and heads across the beach barefoot, sand cool and gritty against the bottoms of her feet. Holtzmann looks so small, and she doesn’t look up when Erin sits down next to her. Erin drapes her coat around her shoulders, and Holtz makes a small noise of thanks, but other than that, doesn’t say anything.

They’re quiet, sitting in silence, listening to the soothing crash and sigh of the waves against the shore.

“My mom died when I was fifteen,” Holtz says, unexpectedly, and Erin looks up. Holtz is staring straight ahead. “She’d been sick for a while, but she hid how bad it was from me. She wanted me to be happy, and I was. I was already getting acceptance letters from more than two dozen colleges all over the world, and about a quarter of them were offering full-ride scholarships.”

Erin doesn’t say anything, just waits quietly for Holtz to keep talking.

“But, then, one day she just kind of collapsed right before I left for school. And I remember sitting in the ER, because they wouldn’t let me in the room with her, and this doctor coming out and talking to me like I was six years old, didn’t seem to care that I was shaking, that I was crying. And that’s how I found out my mom had lung cancer.” Holtz reaches down, drags her fingers through the sand absentmindedly. “She’d had it for months, but had managed to hide it from me. She told me she shaved her head because another friend of hers had breast cancer, and she was doing it in support. She told me that she was getting sick so often because she worked in a preschool, and that little kids are germy. And I believed her, because I was fifteen and I was getting accepted into colleges, and into these amazing schools, and I was mapping out the rest of my life. And meanwhile the cancer was spreading from her lungs, to her liver, to her brain.”

Holtz takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Erin can hear the unshed tears in it. “Her friend got better. She didn’t.” She turns to Erin, finally, eyes large and bright and young, so, so _young_. “I never thought that the rest of my life wouldn’t involve her.”

The silence stretches again, and Erin breaks it, hesitantly. “Is that why you don’t want to go to the radiologist tomorrow? Because your mom died of cancer?”

Holtz laughs, shakily, the sound sharp and humorless. “It’s stupid. It’s so stupid. I know that it is cancer, I should go in, that it should be caught sooner rather than later, but I’m scared.” She punches the sand, the display of anger so sudden and so fierce that Erin jumps. “I might have cancer, and I’m fucking _terrified_. Because I just keep remembering my mom in that hospital bed, and how sick she looked, and the sound that was her flatlining. It’s behind my eyes every time I close them, and I can’t get it out of my head.” She’s crying now, silently, tears dripping down her nose, glistening in the moonlight, and Erin thinks how unfair it is, for such a horrible thing to look so beautiful in this moment.

“I’m terrified, Erin, I don’t like being scared.” Holtz wipes her eyes with the edge of her jacket, her breathing ragged, and Erin can see her chest heaving. Hesitantly, Erin reaches out, places a hand on Holtz’s arm. Holtz stiffens for the briefest of seconds, then, slowly, leans into Erin’s touch.

“After my grandma died,” Erin says, slowly, “My mom told me something. She told me that sometimes, you just have to put her head down, and get through it. Maybe you do have cancer. Maybe you don’t. But you’ll get through it, because you won’t be alone. And, if you do, sometimes the only way to get through it is to get through it.”

Holtz is silent for a long, long moment. Then she shuffles closer to Erin, and lays her head on her shoulder. Erin stiffens for a second, but then relaxes. Holtz curls against her, and they sit there for a long, long moment.

Finally, Holtz whispers, “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For this. For searching for me. For listening.”

Erin looks down at the woman curled into her side, and there’s a strange feeling in her chest. Protectiveness, maybe, but not quite. There’s a wiggling of something else, warm and not unpleasant, behind her sternum. “Of course,” she breathes, and Holtz sighs.

They stay like that. Erin doesn’t know for how long, but she does know that when she wakes up, she’s still on the beach, Holtz curled next to her, and early morning sunlight is flittering through her eyelids. She sits up, careful not to disturb Holtz, and rolls her neck, wincing at the stiffness. The sunrise is warm and orange, and she listens to the waves.

Holtz stirs beside her, and Erin looks down at her. They don’t say anything. They stand up, and Holtz shoves her arms into her coat sleeves, brushing sand off her clothing. Erin picks up her heels and shakes sand out of her hair, fingers getting caught in tangles. They walk toward Abby’s van. They’re close, not touching, but it would take barely anything for Erin to reach out and brush her fingertips across Holtz’s hand.

Abby and Patty are asleep in the car, and they wake up when Holtz and Erin slides in.

“Ready?” Abby asks, stretching in the driver’s seat. Erin can hear the popping of her spine as she twists, and it’s as loud as gunshots in the otherwise silent car.

Holtz is quiet for a long, long moment, turning in the passenger seat to meet Erin’s eyes. An entire conversation happens between them, without them ever having to say anything, and she turns back to Abby.

“Yeah,” she says softly. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

-

They sit silently in the waiting room. They’d all offered to go back with Holtz, but she had refused, and so now they sit. Patty’s picking at her fingernails, Abby is scrolling aimlessly through her phone, and Erin stares down at her hands. She clenches them in her skirt, trying to stop the tremble.

Beside her, Patty shoots to her feet, and Erin looks up. She and Patty stand up at the same time. Holtz stands next to the desk, hands shoved deep in her back pockets. She’s slightly pale, and there are dark rings of exhaustion under her eyes, and they rush to her in one, great movement.

“Well?” Abby asks.

Holtzmann’s smile is slow. “It’s not cancer.”

Erin can feel laughter bubbling up in her throat, the relief sharp and tangible. Holtz nods, smile hesitant. “It’s a cyst. They said it has a possibly to turn precancerous, and that I should probably get it checked out again, but it’s not cancer.”

“Thank god,” Abby says, crushing Holtzmann in a hug. Patty’s biting her lip, looking like she’s trying not to cry, and Erin…

Erin doesn’t know how she feels. Relieved, sure, but there are so many other emotions mixed in that she can’t pick out specific ones, and they somehow feel familiar yet unfamiliar all at once. They bundle out of the clinic, all laughing, and they head down the street toward Abby’s parked car. Erin’s struck by how different this is, how different they are from only an hour ago when they entered the clinic, and how quickly everything could have changed, and not for the better.

Holtz slows until she’s walking beside Erin. She hesitates, like she’s about to say something, but instead just gently bumps her hip against Erin’s. She gives Erin a small smile, the corners of her lips just quirking up at the corners. Then she’s off again, bounding after Abby and Patty, a bundle of energy and light, and Erin smiles as she watches her. Once, before she rounds the corner of the block, she turns back. The harsh corners of the clinic are gray against the bright blueness of the sky, and the contrast is strangely beautiful. Erin can feel something in her heart stutter for a second, as she allows the fear she’d been holding back for the last twenty-four hours wash over her, dizzying and so sharp it takes her breath away. Then it’s gone, funneled away, and she can hear Holtz, Abby, Patty, all laughing.

She turns, turns her back on the clinic, on the fear.

“Hey, guys, wait up!”

She runs after the three women ahead of her, and they all turn, grinning, waving at her to come forward. She slows as she joins them, and Abby links elbows with her, and Holtz and Patty are dancing more than they are walking, both laughing.

This. She loves this. She loves these women. She’s barely known them four months, and they’re her best friends. They’re a stark contrast from Phil, from his frowns and complaints and pointed comments. They’re bright and colorful and joyful, and when Holtz catches her eye, mid spin, mid smile, Erin can feel her heart flutter and catch.

This, this feeling, it’s something to explore another time. Because, for now, Holtz is fine, and they’re laughing in the LA sunshine, and in this moment, everything is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins. Poor little oblivious gay babies. 
> 
> Also, thank you so much for all your kudos and kind comments! It makes me so happy, and I seriously love you guys.


	6. It Smells Like Leather and Wistfulness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title comes from the episode "Fancyman: Part I" and is inspired by the episodes "Fancyman: Part I" and "Nerd"

Erin isn’t sure why she agreed to come with Patty. She tugs uncomfortably at the sleeves of her dress, extremely aware of the neckline that dips just a _little too low_ for her comfort. She voices this to the woman in question, who takes a sip of her champagne and rolls her eyes.

“Because you’ve been moping around the loft for the last week because it’s winter break?” Patty suggests, “And been repeatedly saying how bored you were because you weren’t teaching?”

Erin sidesteps so a woman in dizzyingly high heels can get past. She clutches her own champagne flute. Everywhere she looks is a reminder that she hates this parties, deeply and with a passion that sets fire in her soul. She’d only agreed to come because Patty had asked her; apparently, Abby and Holtz had refused. Now she’s beginning to see why.

Erin makes a couple of small conversations with Patty’s coworkers, but she can feel herself falling into familiar patterns (blurting out random bits of information, lots of awkward, uncomfortable laughing, making jokes she didn’t realize were extremely sexual until after she says them), so she retreats to a table in the back to nibble on cheese and crackers.

About halfway through the evening, her screen lights up with a text message.

[RECEIVED: HOLTZ, 7:32PM: Er-Bear! How’s the party? ;o :) :] :} ]

Erin glances around the room to make sure no one is watching, and quickly types out a text.

[SENT: TO HOLTZ, 7:33PM: I forgot how much I hate these]

Her text tone goes off almost immedietly.

[RECEIVED: HOLTZ, 7:33PM: they’re awful that’s why abby and i never go anymore]

[RECEIVED: HOLTZ, 7:33PM: mostly i just sit in the back and eat pretentiously tiny foods]

[RECEIVED: HOLTZ, 7:34PM: food is the only reason to go. and free alcohol]

[RECEIVED: HOLTZ, 7:34PM: that and the pretty girls in dresses ;) ]

Erin smiles, thumbs poised over the screen. She’s about to answer back when someone else slides into the seat across from her. Erin looks up.

It’s a woman, maybe Erin’s height, with dark hair up in a fashionably messy bun and a navy-blue dress. She meets Erin’s eyes and waves her hand. “Ignore me. Just trying to avoid my ex.”

“We’ve all been there,” Erin says, before she can stop herself, and clamps her mouth shut, eyes widening. But instead of looking put off, a smile curls at the edge of the woman’s lips. She leans forward across the table, and Erin can feel her eyes tracking across _skin_. Because the dress that this woman is wearing isn’t extremely revealing, but it is suggestive, and she’s very pretty, this woman.

“Jennifer Lynch,” she says, reaching out to shake Erin’s hand. “Mayor’s assistant.”

“Erin Gilbert,” Erin says back, shaking her hand.

“Erin, huh?” The woman, Jennifer, curls Erin’s name in her mouth in a way that causes Erin’s breath to hitch. “What do you do, _Erin_?”

“I’m a professor of theoretical particle physics at UCLA,” Erin says, and the edge of Jennifer’s lip quirks up.

“Fascinating,” she says, and with a quick, smooth movement, has slid into the chair next to Erin. She leans against the table, propping herself up on her elbow. “Tell me more.”

-

Jennifer is charming. She’s quick-witted and clearly extremely intelligent and very easy to talk to, and she’s flirting with Erin.

Erin thinks she may be flirting, too. It’s been so long it’s hard to tell, really, but she has her hand wrapped around the stem of her wineglass, and she allows her gaze to linger, and her laugh is growing low and throaty. It’s exciting. Sure, Holtz flirts with Erin, but there’s no intention behind it, so it’s just somewhat embarrassing. But, that Erin is a different Erin. That’s Loft Erin.

This...this is Sexy Erin, in a little black dress and red lipstick and heels that are extremely uncomfortable but make her butt look _fantastic_ , and she thinks she may just be enjoying this. It’s been five months since she broke up with Phil, and here’s this woman, this beautiful woman, flirting with her, and Erin is flirting back.

At one point, Jennifer rests a hand on Erin’s wrist as she laughs, and Erin’s skin tingles beneath the touch. She can feel a pleasant heat building, slow and liquid, low in her stomach. It’s been so long. Which is maybe why she agrees to what Jennifer says next.

Jennifer leans back in her chair. “Look, I’m sorry if I read this situation wrong, but I’m going to say it because I believe in being direct. My ex-husband has our daughter for the weekend, and I have my apartment to myself. I find you very attractive, and I would very much like for you to come back with me tonight.” She checks her phone, the screen lighting her face up blue. “I’m going to use the lady’s room, then I’m going to leave, and you’re welcome to join me, or you can not.” She smiles, a seductive tilt to her chin. “But I very much hope you do.” She scoops up the purse and maneuvers through the crowd with an ease that Erin could never hope to replicate.

Erin sits at the table for a second, then she goes to find Patty.

-

Patty laughs, so loudly that several people’s heads turn, and Erin can feel her cheeks flush.

“Patty, shh,” She hisses, glancing around, and Patty stops laughing, but is still grinning.

“See, something did come out of coming to this with me,” she says, waggling her eyebrows, and Erin’s cheeks get even hotter.

“Yes, okay,” she relents, casting her gaze around. She’s sure that everyone knows what she and Patty are talking about. “Just...thought I’d tell you I won’t be coming home with you.” She slides her purse up higher on her shoulder. Patty nudges her gently.

“It’s fine, Erin. Go get some!”

Patty’s cackle follows Erin through the crowd.

She finds Jennifer out in the parking lot, leaning against a small, red Prius. Erin feels a small flicker of surprise. She was expecting something sportier, a convertible, maybe, but Jennifer straights up with a smile.

“I’m glad you decided to join me,” she says, opening the passenger side door for Erin before rounding the car to climb into the driver’s seat. Erin looks around. The car, while clean, is clearly the car of a mom. There are snacks in the cup holders and water bottles on the floor of the back, and there’s a pink jacket way too small for Jennifer thrown across the backseat.

They’re silent for the drive, and Erin clutches her purse in her hands, nerves stewing in her stomach. She’s never really been one for one-night stands, finding them awkward and not worth it, and she’s too much of a romantic for them, anyways. This…this is new territory.

Jennifer’s apartment looks almost exactly like what Erin expected. Clean and white and gray, minimal decorations except for the occasion vase of flowers or picture on the wall. Most of the pictures are of a red-haired girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old.

Jennifer comes around the corner with a glass in each hand, and she hands one glass to Erin. Erin sips at it, casually, to find it’s only sparkling water with lime, no alcohol to be found.

“Sara,” Jennifer says in explanation, nodding at the pictures. “My daughter. Only good thing to come out of my trash heap of a marriage.” She takes a sip from her own glass. “We were too young. Only twenty when we got married, and I was only twenty-one when I got pregnant.” She laughs, softly. “But that’s another story for another time.”

Erin gasps as Jennifer moves, taking the glass out of Erin’s hand and pulling her hips flush against Jennifer’s in one smooth movement. Jennifer smirks. “I think we have _other_ plans.”

-

It’s nice, really, _really_ nice to feel the heat again. With Phil, there had hardly been any, especially toward the end of the relationship, but it flares up again with Jennifer, and Erin lets herself get lost in it. It’s not overpowering, a crackling hearth as opposed to a wildfire, but it’s enough.

So when a thigh slides between hers, Erin gasps. When a hand slips below the waistband of her underwear, she moans. She lets her own hands dance across soft skin, over curves, lets her hands wander down, searching out the _heat_. She finds it, and the breathy exhalations in her ear, the dig of fingernails in her back, the ache of teeth in her shoulder are all sensations she lets herself get buried in.

It’s nice, to feel the heat again.

It’s not a wildfire, but it’s enough.

-

In the morning, there’s a phone number pressed into the palm of her hand, a time and date programmed into her phone, a hissed _call me_ in her ear, the pinch of a gentle nip against her earlobe, and she’s in the cab, heading home. She’s tired, exhaustion dragging on her eyelids. She doesn’t sleep that well in her own bed, and in someone else’s she’ll barely be able to sleep for longer than a few minutes before waking up.

The elevator takes _forever_ , like it always does, so Erin drags herself up the stairs. As soon as she’s in the loft she heads straight toward her bedroom, tiptoeing through the halls. It’s early, but not _early_ , so everyone else might already be up, but it’s also a Saturday and Erin doesn’t want to risk waking up Holtz if she’s asleep, because Holtzmann rarely sleeps. She thinks she’s successful, for the most part, but then she steps on the _one_ creaky floorboard in the hallway, and Abby’s door flies open.

Erin jumps, expecting anger, but Abby’s grinning.

“So,” Abby says, “Who was he?”

“She,” Erin corrects automatically, then blushes because this is not a conversation she wants to be having. Abby’s grin gets wider.

“Fine. Who was she? Was she pretty?”

Erin’s bed is a siren song down the hallway, but she knows she’s not getting out of this conversation until she answers at least a couple of questions, so she shucks off her heels, her feet aching in the good kind of hurt that comes with the release. “Her name’s Jennifer. Lynch.”

“The mayor’s assistant?” Abby says, shocked, and Erin blinks at her, equally surprised.

“You know her?”

“Patty’s dragged me to more of those parties than I can count. I’m pretty sure I’ve been introduced to everyone working at City Hall _at least_ twice.” Abby tucks her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. “She doesn’t seem like your type.”

“My type?” Erin frowns. “What do you think my type is?”

Abby shrugs. “I dunno. Stuffy professors in tweed? Look like they belong in the stock photos that pop up when you Google “professional”?”

Erin opens her mouth, slightly offended. Then she things back to her past relationships and closes her mouth again. “Okay, fine. But Jennifer is professional!”

Abby raises an eyebrow. “Maybe. But she’s professional on a whole different level. Can you imagine her wearing _tweed_?”

Erin huffs, relenting. “Okay, okay! She’s not my usual type.”

“Are you going to see her again, or was it a one-night thing?”

Erin fiddles with the strap on her shoe. “We’re meeting for coffee tomorrow.”

“Hey, congratulations!” Abby gives Erin a pat on the arm. “I know this a big step for you.”

“Yeah,” Erin says again, softly. There’s a niggling in the corner of her brain, something that keeps her from getting too excited. At first, she thought it was because of Phil, the fear that what happened with Phil could happen again, but it’s not it. She can’t put her finger on it, but she’s too tired to even attempt to right now.

She yawns, so widely her jaw pops, and Abby leans against her doorframe.

“I’ll let you get to bed. I’m sure you didn’t get much sleep last night.” Her smirk is suggestive, and Erin’s cheeks are on fire. Abby retreats into her room, and Erin returns to her intended path.

She crashes face first onto her bed, and passes out as soon as her cheek hits her pillow.

-

“Stop being so mopey,” Abby grumbles, and Holtzmann gasps in mock outrage.

“I’m not being _mopey_ ,” she says, hand to her chest, giving Abby a wounded look. Abby’s eyes flick from the book in her hands to Holtz, then raises an eyebrow.

“Fiiine, I’m being “mopey”.” Holtz makes air quotes. “But can you blame me? This is boring.” She flops into an uncomfortable chair, propping her feet up on the side table, nearly knocking the fake plant from its perch.

Abby shoves the book back onto the bookshelf. “You’re the one who invited yourself along on this! I didn’t force you to come with me!”

Holtz rolls her eyes, picking at the tiniest of unraveling seams on the armrest of the chair. “I thought that you sorting through your boss’s books would be _interesting_. Instead it’s a lot of _this_.” She scoops up a leather-bound book on top of a teetering stack at Abby’s feet. “Why does he have six dictionaries?” She waves the book for emphasis. “ _Six_ , Abby. And they’re not even different dictionaries. They’re the exact same, year and all.”

“Because Dean Shanks is an idiot who thinks that filling his bookshelves with random books makes him look smart.” Abby tosses another book on a different stack. “Look, after this we’ll go to that consignment store you like.”

“Really? Cool!” The seam rips beneath Holtz’s nails, and she snatches up a pillow, covering the hole. Abby side-eyes her, but says nothing. They sit in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Are you sure that you moping has nothing to do with the fact that Erin didn’t come home last night?” Abby says, suddenly, and Holtz rips her eyes away from the fan she was watching spin.

“ _What_?”

Abby shrugs. “It’s just…you watch her a lot. You flirt with her.”

“I flirt with everybody, Abs. I flirt with _you_.”

“I know,” Abby says, patiently. “But you flirt with her most of all.”

There’s a strange feeling in Holtz’s gut, and she pushes it down, down, down. It’s been lingering there for weeks, ever since that night on the beach when Holtz was scared and hurting and lonely, and Erin had been there. But the feeling terrifies Holtz, almost as much as the thought of her having cancer had, and she can’t dwell on it, not now, maybe not ever, because it’s new territory. So she puts on a smile, bright and thoughtless.

“I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there,” Holtz says, cheerfully. “I flirt with Patty a lot, too. And Outside Dave. That doesn’t mean I want to date Outside Dave. I swing the other way, if you know what I mean.”

Abby rolls her eyes. “Holtz, you literally introduced yourself to me as “Jillian Holtzmann, nuclear engineer and gay as hell.” That was our first conversation.”

“I forgot I did that,” Holtz says thoughtfully. “Huh.” 

Abby makes a cooing sound that makes Holtz eye her, thinking it was relating to the conversation, but then she notices Abby is stretched out on her stomach, reaching out and petting a paw barely visible under the desk with one finger. Still making the cooing noise, a sound Holtz has never heard her make before and never expected to ever hear her make, Abby coaxes the cat out from under the desk.

Holtz bursts out laughing. The cat is _ridiculous_. Poofy and stubby-limbed and orange-eyed, with a smooshed face.

“Did that cat run repeatedly into a brick wall?” Holtz asks, delighted. Abby glares, scooping the cat into her lap.

“Don’t listen to her, Ferguson.” She pets the cat, who licks his nose with a pink tongue.

“ _Ferguson_?!”

Abby scratches the cat behind his ears, and he purrs, rubbing his head against her stomach. “He’s the world’s best cat. Dean Shanks doesn’t deserve him.” She clucks her tongue at the cat, who looks up at her, tilting his head.

“I didn’t even know you liked cats,” Holtz says, watching, fascinated by how differently her best friend is acting.

“I don’t,” Abby says, rubbing noses with the cat. “But Ferguson is the exception.”

When they leave, Holtz watches in equal parts amusement and fascination as Abby kisses the top of the cat’s head, scratching him under the chin. She even looks guilty as she leaves the office.

Holtz bumps her hip. “We may need to get you a cat.”

“No cat could compare to Ferguson,” Abby says, completely seriously.

Holtz can’t help it. She _dies_.

-

Erin comes back from the coffee date with Jennifer to find Holtz at the kitchen table, at least six toasters, an ancient VCR, a radio, and a set of walkie talkies in front of her, the pieces scattered across the table. She’s bobbing along to music as she does, but she looks up when Erin slides into the chair across from her.

“How’d the date go?” Holtz asks. “Was it good?”

“Yes,” Erin answers honestly. It was. It was a good date; Erin might even stretch so far as to call it perfect. Jennifer was friendly and charming and polite. She made dry jokes that Erin didn’t have to force herself to laugh at, she offered to pay for Erin’s latte and muffin, and the small talk was amicable and unawkward. It wasn’t a bad first date, not at all.

“You paused,” Holtz says, and Erin frowns.

“What?”

“You paused before you answered.” Holtz is looking back down at the machine in front of her, fingers movingly deftly and confidently as she unscrews and twists and connects.

“No, I didn’t,” Erin says, and Holtz shrugs, one shoulder going up and down.

“If you say so.”

“Jennifer is very nice.”

“I’d assume so.”

“We’re going on another date this Thursday.”

“That’s great.”

There’s an odd tension in the conversation, and it stretches between them, tight and uncomfortable. It makes Erin itch, and she resists the urge to rip her nails across the skin of her arms.

“What’re you doing?” She asks, finally, because she doesn’t think she can stand another second of this,

Holtz lights up, going from a strange, quiet sullenness to her usual, happy self. “This little thing?” She pats the vaguely rectangular blob of metal. “Thiiiiis baby has enough juice to power the entire building. It maaaaay be illegal. But I’m going to nip down to the basement next time Rowan leaves and install it, and see what happens. Hopefully it doesn’t explode, although there’s like a 15% chance it might. Well, 25%. Well, 40%. Well…”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Erin says, weakly, and Holtz grins.

“Let’s just say chances of poofs are high.” The way her dimples flash when she smiles at Erin makes her heart skip a beat, and her hand goes to her chest, frowning.

“Are you okay?” Holtz asks, concern in her voice.

“Yeah,” Erin says, waving her off. “It’s nothing.”

“Really? Because-“

Holtz is cut off from whatever she’s about to say by the door slamming. It’s Abby. Erin can tell by the way she swears under her breath as she trips over Holtzmann’s boots. But there’s also a lot of thudding, a strange, strangled sound.

And a cat walks past Erin, tail high in the air.

“Uh, Abby?” Erin asks, tentatively, watching as the cat makes itself at home on the couch.

“What?”

“Cat?”

“Oh, yeah.” Abby comes around the corner, brushing the palms of her hands against her jeans. “That’s Ferguson.”

Holtz laughs, loudly. “Abby, did you steal your boss’s cat?”

“WHAT?” Erin almost shrieks, and Abby winces.

“Maybe?”

Holtz bursts into laughter, smacking the table with the palm of her hand. Erin looks at Abby in shock.

“You _stole_ your _boss’s cat_?”

Abby makes a helpless gesture. “I was talking to him about how much I liked Ferguson, and he told me that Ferguson was stupid and that he wishes he never got him, and then, like magic, about fifteen minutes later Ferguson showed up outside my classroom, and it was like fate.”

“Abby!” Erin scolds. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t think she was thinking at all,” Holtz says, clearly elated at this turn of events.

“It was easy!” Abby says, as if that makes it any better. “I just kind of tucked him under my arm and left.”

“Oh my god, you’re going to get arrested for stealing a cat. A cat, Abby!”

“She’s not going to get arrested,” Holtz says, at the exact same time as Abby says, “I’m not going to get arrested.”

Erin just groans. This is too much to deal with right now.

“So, how was the date?” Abby asks, clearly trying to change the subject. Erin waves a hand.

“Fine. Good. We’re going on another date on Thursday.”

“What? That’s all you’re going to say? I want the details!”

“For someone who doesn’t want to date you sure really like hearing about mine,” Erin snaps, although there’s no fire behind it.

“She likes being in the know,” Holtz says from across the table, punctuating her words with click of her pliers.

Abby nods, eagerly. “Yes, Erin! What did you guys get? What was she wearing? Where are you going on your next date?”

“Um, she got espresso and a pain au chocolat, I got a latte and a muffin, a skirt and a sweater, and that restaurant on La Brea Avenue.”

The cat- Ferguson -meows from the couch, and Erin groans. Her forehead hits the table with a thud. This has been a long day.

-

Once Erin leaves, Abby claims her seat, watching as Holtz makes little, fiddly adjustments to the generator.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Holtz?” Abby asks, softly, and Holtz rolls her eyes.

“I’m _fine_ , Abby,” she says, although she gives the next screw a particularly vicious twist. “I don’t have feelings for Erin. I’ve told you that before.”

“I just-“

“I know.” Holtz sets down her screwdriver. “You want to keep me from getting hurt. And I apricate that, I really do, you just don’t need to watch over me. Sure, maybe you would if Erin starts sighing over Jennifer’s clothing and saying how it smells like leather and wistfulness-“

“What? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know! That’s what people say in movies.” Holtz screws the last plate into place, and stands up, tucking the generator under her arm. “And even then, you’d only protect me from getting massively annoyed.”

“Holtz-“

“I’m done talking about this, Abby. Now, I’ve got a creepy landlord to avoid while I install a potentially explosive generator. Do you want to be my lookout or not?”

Abby snatches the walkie talkie out of Holtz’s hand. “Do you even need to ask?”

-

They’re all woken up at midnight that night by a yell coming in the direction of the living room.

“WHO THE _HELL_ LET A _CAT_ IN THE LOFT?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE HOLTZBERT IS ENDGAME, DESPITE WHAT THIS CHAPTER MAY HAVE MADE SEEM.


	7. I Want to Rub My Face on Her Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title comes from the episode "Kids", and is inspired by the episodes "Fancyman: Part II" and "Kids"

 

Over the next few weeks, Erin and Jennifer go on a lot of dates. They go to restaurant and cafes, they visit the museums and art galleries and botanical gardens, they walk along the beach front and go to a movie every Friday. And, yes, the sex is good, too. Nothing is fantastic; there’s no heaving passion, no desperate grasping or breath-stealing moments of heat, but Erin’s never had that, and she thinks, sometimes, that it’s a romanticized version of, well, romance, that lives in the novels she keeps around for whenever she needs a guilty pleasure. That it doesn’t exist in real life.

But dating Jennifer is nice. They hold hands while walking down the street and kiss when they say goodbye and bring each other coffee in the mornings. It’s nice. And it takes an edge of the loneliness, so Erin can overlook the lack of fire between them. She’s not ever going to find fire, anyways.

They’ve been dating for a month when Jennifer calls her one morning.

_“I’m so sorry to ask this of you, because I know it’s kind of out of the blue, but I have an emergency work meeting and Bradley can’t take Sara until tonight.”_

Erin tucks her phone between her ear and her shoulder, half-focusing on Jennifer’s voice on the phone, and half focused on the pile of laundry she’s currently folding.

_“And I was wondering if you could watch Sara for a couple of hours? If you can’t, I’ll find someone else, but she likes you, and, well…I think you’re going to be around for a while.”_

Erin pauses. “Oh.”

_“Like I said, it’s fine if you can’t.”_

“No, no!” Erin says, quickly. She switches her phone to her other shoulder. “I can take her. She can have dinner with us. Yeah! Bring her over.”

_“Thank you! I owe you one, Erin! I’ll see you in twenty!”_

Jennifer hangs up, and Erin lets her phone fall to her bedspread.

I think you’ll be around for a while.

The phrase is ringing in Erin’s head, bouncing around her skull. It’s oddly invasive, and it’s an uncomfortable invasive. Erin pushes at her temples as if she can stop the feeling. Because she shouldn’t be feeling like this. Jennifer was nice. Dating Jennifer was nice.

Nice.

-

“Guys?” Erin clears her throat, and all three women turn to her. “Jennifer asked me if I could watch Sara for a few hours tonight, and I told her yes.”

“Why’d you do that?” Abby asks, curiously.

“It doesn’t matter,” Erin says. She could feel herself getting flustered by that small, innocent question, and so she brushes it away, quickly. “But _please_ be on your best behavior. Abby, no swearing, and Holtz, no lighting things on fire.”

“Awwwww,” Holtzmann whines good naturedly. “But young children love fire!”

“Why doesn’t Patty get a warning?” Abby half asks, half complains, and Erin looks at her.

“Because she’s not going to do anything stupid in front of a twelve-year-old!”

“That’s true,” Abby mumbles, and Patty flashes her a smug grin.

Holtz raises her hand. “I found a pasta maker in the cupboard and I was going to make pasta tonight. Can I still make pasta?”

Erin stares at her. “Yes, because you do not light pasta on fire.”

“Oh, Er,” Holtzmann says cheerfully. “You sweet, naïve soul. You can light anything on fire if you want to.” She spins in her chair. “Fettuccine Alfredo Flambé.”

“Don’t you need to cook something in alcohol for it to be flambé, though?” Abby asks, and Holtz’s eyes light up.

“Hey-!”

“NO,” Erin says firmly. “We are not serving a _twelve-year-old_ pasta that is _on fire_ and drenched in vodka.”

“I never said it had to be vodka.”

“Yeah, isn’t it typically rum?”

Erin can feel a headache forming behind her eyes. She rubs at her temples, trying to remember if she got her prescription migraine meds refilled.

“Just, please, no fettuccine alfredo flambé,” Erin says, weakly. “Make garlic bread or something and toast that.”

“Can I still-“

“Please don’t soak the bread in vodka,” Patty says, wrinkling her noise. “Garlic bread is delicious. Vodka is delicious. But I never want to find out what the two taste like together. Do your mad scientist thing somewhere other than the kitchen.”

-

“Your hair is weird.”

Holtz looks up from the pasta maker. There’s a girl standing in front of her, arms crossed, face twisted in an expression of superiority only a preteen girl can pull off. Holtz raises an eyebrow.

“Your shirt is weird,” Holtz says back, cranking the handle of the pasta maker. She’d tested that it still worked on a piece of string cheese she found in the fridge, and it turned out marvelously squished and flat, so she’d spent the last half an hour squishing whatever vaguely squishable thing she could find.

The girl- Sara, probably, unless random preteen girls just kind of _wandered_ the loft now -watched as the hunk of silly putty oozed out from the rollers. “It’s not weird. I like it.”

“And I like my hair. But it is weird, I’ll give you that. But I purposely make it weird.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s interesting,” Holtz says, shrugging. She glances around the kitchen, searching for something else to squish.

“Sara, there you are!” Erin comes around the corner, looking frazzled. It takes Holtz a moment to notice that Erin’s wearing Holtz’s MIT hoodie, and her train of thought details. Erin reaches out like she’s going to touch Erin’s shoulder, but about halfway through the movement she changes her mind and instead places her hand palm down on the counter, leaning awkwardly. She casts her gaze around the countertop, taking in the scattering of random, flattened things, and her eyebrows furrow.

“Are you…not making pasta now?”

Holtz watches as the last of the silly putty glops out of the pasta maker. “Your doubt wounds me, Erin. I would never promise the gloriousness of carbs only to rudely snatch them away. The dough is hanging out.”

“What?” Erin looks even more confused than she already does. It’s strangely endearing.

“It’s chilling. In the fridge,” Holtz clarifies, and Erin nods.

“Okay.”

Sara tilts her head. “Your eyes are very blue. They look like a fish.”

Patty, who had come in mid conversation, laughs. “Yeah, fish-eyes.” She playfully punches Holtz’s shoulder as she passes, her phone buzzing in her back pocket. Patty fishes it out, and grumbles something under her breath.

Holtz leans back on her heels, stretching her neck to try and read the phone screen. “Ooo, Lilli?”

“Who’s Lilli?” Erin asks, shooing off Sara with a promise that she’ll show Sara how to play bridge (Holtz snorts, because of course Erin would teach a twelve-year-old how to play _bridge_ ).

“My sister,” Patty explains, thumbs flying across the phone screen. “She’s freaking out because she thinks she’s pregnant.”

“Why?”

“Because she didn’t get her period last week like she was supposed to.”

Holtz’s eyebrows fly up. “Wait, that’s how you know you’re pregnant?” She makes a violently loud siren sound, waving her hands. “MAYDAY, MAYDAY, I DIDN’T GET MY PERIOD LAST WEEK EITHER. SOMEONE GET ME A PREGNANCY TEST STAT!”

“Holtzy, I have so many responses to that, so I’m just going to with _why_?”

Holtz waves at herself. “I mean, look at this body. In prime condition. Perfect breeding ground for immaculate conceptions. Or alien babies.” She gasps, loudly. “I did have a strange dream the other night…”

“Really?” Patty asks, and Holtz nods seriously, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

“Yep. I had a dream that I was being repeatedly poked in the boob. But then I woke up and it was only Ferguson, who was sleeping on my boobs.” She grins. “But still.”

Erin pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay, great. Just…make pasta or keep squishing…whatever that is.” She waves her hand at the blob of silly putty, slowly spreading out on the cutting board.

“Erin! Don’t you want to feel alien baby kick?”

Erin doesn’t answer, which is kind of disappointing.

-

“So,” Erin says, watching as Sara picks at the edges of her fingernails, clearly bored. “What do you like to do?”

Sara gives her a look so full of irritation and _snark_ that Erin can’t help but feel personally wounded. Erin coughs, uncomfortably, and Sara flops backwards on the couch. Her phone buzzes, and Sara shifts so she can pull her phone out of her pocket. Erin watches as her face creases in anger, typing furiously. With a growl of frustration, Sara tosses her phone in the general direction of the coffee table.

“Uh…is there something wrong?” Erin asks, hesitantly, and Sara growls.

“ _Ashley_.” Sara growls, again. “My friends are saying I should date her but I don’t know.”

“You should date someone who makes you happy,” Erin says, because she can’t stop herself. “Someone who makes you laugh.”

“Like Holtzmann?”

“Oh,” Erin says, slightly surprised. Her mind flashes, inexplicably, to the night before, at the bar with Holtzmann. Holtzmann had turned on the jukebox to the world’s worst pop song, and had proceeded to dance, enthusiastic and over the top, until Erin was laughing until she was nearly crying. “I guess so. Sure.”

Sara looks at her with a wide-eyed intensity. “Because I’m in love with Holtzmann.”

“Wait, what?”

“She’s so hot,” Sara says, leaning forward. Erin can almost feel the preteen hormones rolling off her. “I want to rub my face on her face!”

She collapses, face-down into the pillows, giving a frustrated screen. Erin can only watch, wide-eyed.

Oh, this isn’t good.

-

Holtz pokes at the sauce in the pot with a spoon. The recipe says to cook it over low heat, and it’s on low heat, and it’s not doing anything. It’s just sitting there, smelling creamy and lemony and delicious, and she desperately, desperately wants to eat it. She can’t stop tasting it, and, God, she could drink this sauce through a straw.

The pasta sits in a strainer in the sink, ready and waiting, and, yes, Holtz may have eaten some of it, too. She glances to her right, where there’s a tray of garlic bread, ready and waiting to be popped into the oven until it’s nice and bubbly and crispy. Her eyes land on her blow torch, on the shelf next to the fire extinguisher. And she knows that Erin was kidding, but it’s _right there_ , and it would be so easy.

Turns out garlic is super flammable, and the bread goes up in a whoosh of flames. Holtz yelps, dunking the tray in the sink, because no one can know this happened, but she forgot about her pasta- her delicious, homemade pasta! -still in the sink, and she thinks she may have singed it a little bit.

And, in those few moments, the sauce is suddenly bubbling and boiling, and so naturally Holtzmann spends a good three minutes cackling in her best Halloween witch impression while stirring. She picks out of the blackened bits of garlic bread from the pasta, then dumps everything in a bowl, stirs it together, and flings it in the general direction of the table.

“DINNER!” She yells, flopping down in the chair at the head of the table. She scoops up Ferguson before she does, though, because she doesn’t want to squish him. He makes an odd little meowy grumble, and Holtz scratches him under his chin.

Patty’s the first to appear, then Abby, and, finally, a bright red Erin and Sara. Holtz uses a pair of salad tongs to serve the pasta, because she can’t find the serving spoon and, really, the tongs work just as well, and then they eat.

“I don’t understand how such a tiny person can eat so much,” Patty says, watching as Holtz plows her way through her third plate of pasta.

“It’s because of alien baby,” Holtz says cheerfully. She rubs her stomach like pregnant woman in the movies, giving her abdomen a couple of gentle pats. “It needs lots of cream sauce and noodles to grow big and strong and have the strength to burst from my stomach.” She does her best impression of having a chestburster immerge from her, with much screaming and writhing. An irritated Ferguson jumps out of her lap, and goes to sulk under the couch.

Sara laughs, and Holtz turns to grin at her, pleased.

“You’re so funny,” Sara says, and Erin’s eyes widen in horror, which is slightly confusing. Yeah, alien isn’t exactly the most kid-friendly movie, but Holtzmann was twelve when she watched it for the first time, late at night in the basement so her mom wouldn’t know, and it only gave her nightmares for a month at most.

“Thank you!” Holtz says, contorting her body so her top half is facing Erin and her bottom half is in the same position. “I like this kid. She has good tastes.” She points with her fork in Sara’s general direction, and Erin shakes her head, mouthing _no_. Holtz frowns.

“What?”

Patty gives Erin some major side eye, which Erin avoids by staring at her plate as if it’s the most interesting plate of pasta in the world. She clears her throat. “So...how was everyone’s day?”  


Abby groans. “I’m just going to say that my students are absolute IDIOTS and leave it at that.”

Sara tilts her head. “Are you a teacher?”

Abby nods, looking mildly surprised. “Yeah. I teach chem. At the community college.”

“My dad says that community college for idiots and people who aren’t qualified to teach anywhere else,” Sara says, so matter of fact that Holtz is slightly taken aback. Abby actually leans back in her chair, looking utterly surprised.

Erin leans forward. “Sara, I know you’re just trying to look cool in front of…you know, but you can’t say things like that!”

Sara gasps, loudly and angrily. “Did you tell her?”

“What? No!” Erin says, and Sara gasps again.

“You did! You just told her!” Sara jumps up from the table, so quickly that her chair tips over. “Oh my god! You just told her! I hate you!” She takes off further into the loft, and there’s the sound of a door slamming. Erin drops her head into her hands and groans.

“I’m going to let y’all deal with this,” Patty says, pushing away from the table. “I’m dealing with enough hormones from Lilli as it is.”

Abby shakes her head, standing up too. “I’m just going to say…ditto. Expect about the Lilli part. But I don’t do well with teen girls, so, sorry, Erin, but this is for you to deal with.”

They both disappear in the directions of their respective bedrooms. Erin doesn’t remove her head from the table. Holtz pokes her with her fork.

“Are you dead?”

“No,” Erin moans. “Although I’m probably going to be in…” she raises her head just enough to check her watch, then lets it fall again. “About twenty minutes, when Bradley comes to pick up her daughter only to find that she’s decided she’s fallen in love with _you_.”

Holtz pouts in mock hurt. “What’s wrong with falling in love with me? I mean, I’m like the ultimate package.” She ticks things off on her fingers. “I’m brilliant, if I do say so myself, I cook, clearly, I’m pretty cute, and I can give you one hell of an orgasm-“

“Okay, I get it.” Erin stops Holtz, her ears turning pink. “You can list off all the reasons why you’d make a good girlfriend later. For now, let’s just get _my_ girlfriend’s twelve-year-old daughter out of our bathroom.”

For some reason, the emphasis on _my_ makes something in Holtz’s chest give a little twinge, but she ignores it.

-

“Sara?” Erin knocks softly on the bathroom door before trying to knob. Locked. “Are you okay?”

“Go away!” Sara’s voice is muffled through the door, and Erin casts a helpless look at Holtz. Holtz shrugs, palms up, which makes Erin frustrated, because this is partly her fault. She means, yes, she’s the one who (accidently!) revealed Sara’s crush/love/lust for Holtzmann, but she needs to share the blame with someone a little bit, and Holtz is a convenient second person, because she’s just so _good looking_. It’s massively frustrating to Erin, and she’s not exactly sure why that is, it just is.

“Sara, I’m sorry,” Erin says, resting her head against the door. “Just come out. You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

“I can’t.”

“Sara, we are literally the most embarrassing people on the planet,” Holtz says, shuffling up so she’s next to Erin, speaking into the tiny crack between the door and the wall. “I spent a half an hour this afternoon using a pasta maker to flatten silly putty.”

“I once sat in strawberry jam, then taught an entire lecture without realizing that it looked like I had a bloodstain on my skirt,” Erin says, hesitantly.

“I talk to myself in a cockney accent when I’m alone, and sometimes I forget and do it in front of other people.”

“I still have my butterfly clips from when I was a little kid, and sometimes I still wear them,” Erin says, and almost instantly regrets it when Holtz turns to her, eyes wide with a childish glee, and mouths _really_?

Erin shrugs, heat gathering in her face, and Holtz laughs, softly. Erin closes her eyes, turning so she’s leaning against the doorway instead of the actual door.

“You see, Sara? We’re all embarrassing. You don’t have to be embarrassed in front of us.”

And, finally, thankfully, the door slides open, and Sara stands there, pink-cheeked and red eyed, and Erin nearly gasps in relief, especially when, barely thirty seconds later, the doorbell rings, Bradley on the other side of the door.

When Sara and her dad leave, Holtz smiles at Erin. She’s got a smudge of flour across her cheekbone, and Erin’s fingers itch to brush it off.

“So,” Holtz says, “I’m working the night shift tonight. Do you maybe want to come and hang out at the bar with me for a little while?”

Erin shakes her head, a little regretfully. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she says, truly apologetically. “But Jennifer texted me about fifteen minutes ago. Her meeting got out early, and she wants me to come over.”

Something about Holtz’s smile becomes odd and fixed.

“Oh! Of course,” she says, and her tone is breezy and light, but there’s still an edge to it that makes Erin frown. “Go to your girlfriend.”

“I really am sorry,” Erin says, but Holtz gives her a gentle push in the direction of the door.

“Go,” Holtz says, “Go and get it on with your very hot girlfriend. I mean, I can’t blame you for wanting to do that instead of sitting in a dive bar at five on a Saturday night.”

The way Holtz words it almost seems like a challenge, but Erin shakes her head, once, swiftly. She must be imagining things. “Yeah. Okay. Great!”

She smiles at Holtz, reaching out to squeeze her arm. “Thanks for your help with Sara.”

“Of course!” Holtz shrugs. “It’s practice.”

“Practice?”

Holtz rubs both hands on her lower stomach. “For my child, Erin, how could you forget him so easily?”

“Him?”

“Aren’t all alien babies males?”

Erin laughs, and Holtz looks pleased.

-

It’s late. Probably later than Holtz should be up, so late that it’s no longer considered _night_ anymore, and is instead early morning. She’d spent her entire shift at the bar in a strange sort of funk, and now, she can’t sleep, so instead she busies her hands with taking apart and putting back together her radio, over and over and over.

Erin didn’t come home last night. Not that Holtz really expected her too, of course. She and Jennifer had been dating for a while, now, and Holtz knows they have sex, and Holtz nows Erin sleeps over, and she thinks she should be happy for her friend, but there’s something there, something in her gut that makes her ache at the thought of Erin, in bed with a woman on the other side of town. Erin, happy and laughing in Jennifer’s bed.

It’s awful, her thinking this, because she should be happy for Erin. Because that’s what friends do, when their friends get girlfriends. They be happy for them.

Her mind has been circling this for hours, and she throws her pliers down in frustration, flopping back onto her pillows. She probably lies there for almost an hour, staring at the ceiling, watching the blades of the fan lazily circle, when her phone buzzes. She sits up, groping along her bedside table before her hand closes around it. She squints at the screen.

[RECEIVED, REBECCA, 4:02AM: I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I want to try it again. See if we can do better this time.]

Holtz stares at the text for a long, long time. It’s been almost a year since she and Rebecca broke up, for the third time in five years, and she almost ignores the text, but when she puts her phone back, her mind gets caught on the text, and on the fact that Erin never came home last night.

She picks her phone back up. She types out a text. And, before she can stop herself, she hits send.

-

[FROM, HOLTZMANN, 4:29AM: i’ve been thinking about you a lot too.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made pasta from scratch before, and let me tell you, it is DELICIOUS, but it takes FOREVER. Like croissants. So my pasta maker sits in the cupboard, all but abandoned. I've considered using it to roll out cookie dough because I'm lazy and having a sheeter at work and school has spoiled me. Or maybe croissant dough so I can try making them at home.
> 
> ANYWAYS, thank you guys so much for comment and kudos and everything! I've been having a hard last few weeks, and it makes me so happy that people are enjoying this little project.


	8. This is the Only Face I Have

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and chapter based off episode "Tomatoes"

“So, I have a kind of awkward question to ask you,” Jennifer says. She’s sitting on her bed, watching as Erin gathers her things. She’s running a mental checklist as she does, making sure she doesn’t leave something behind. _Purse. Hoodie. Phone charger_.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Jennifer shifts, and although Erin can’t see her, she can hear the sheets rustle. _Shoes. Meds. Case for contact lenses_. “Bradley wants to have dinner with us.”

Erin pauses, halfway through tucking her contact case into a pocket of her purse. “Really?”

Jennifer nods. “He says that if you’re going to be around Sara, he wants to know you.” She shrugs. “I tried to tell him you’re totally trustworthy, but he still insists. And I know going out to dinner with your girlfriend’s ex-husband isn’t the ideal way to spend an evening, but…”

“No, I get it,” Erin assures her. She pulls her purse on to her shoulder. “I’d want to do the same thing.”

Jennifer exhales. “Okay. How does tomorrow night sound? Both Bradley and I have it off, and I know you don’t lecture Thursday nights, so, maybe…?”

“Sound good,” Erin says, even though the thought of spending a couple of hours making small talk with Jennifer’s ex-husband sounds absolutely awful. Jennifer smiles, leaning up to peck Erin on the lips.

“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

-

The restaurant is one of Erin’s favorites. It never fails to sooth her whenever she steps inside, softly lit with glowing candles on every table, gentle music, and delicious food. She and Jennifer get there on time and are escorted to their table by a waiter, and the entire time Erin’s stomach is roiling.

What if Bradley decides that Erin can’t be around Sara? What if he decides to make a big scene?

She wipes sweating palms against her slacks, and wonders for a moment if she should have worn a dress. A hand squeezes hers under the table, and she jumps, foot hitting the table leg, but it’s only Jennifer.

“He’ll like you,” Jennifer promises, giving Erin’s hand another squeeze. Erin nods, her foot bouncing. It feels like her stomach is attempting to curl itself into a ball inside her.

“Hi, sorry I’m late.”

Erin looks up just in time to watch as Bradley slides into a seat across from Erin and Jennifer. He holds out his hand to Erin, and, after a moment of hesitation, she shakes it.

“It’s good to see you again,” she says, admittedly untruthfully, but he just gives her a little, kind of cold smile, and flips open his menu.

Jennifer does the same, and Erin lets her shaking hands still on her lap before reaching for hers. Jennifer gently bumps elbows with Erin.

“You’ve been here before, right?” At Erin’s small sound of confirmation, Jennifer gives her a playful smile, head tilting to the side. “How is the ravioli?”

The corners of Erin’s lips quirk up at Jennifer’s silly, awful Italian accent. “I’ve actually never had-“

“Oh, the eyeroll,” Jennifer breaks in, irritation heavy in her voice. She’s staring at Bradley across the table, sarcasm bleeding into every word. “Mm. Miss that.”

Bradley sets down his menu. “I didn’t actually roll my eyes. I just had to stare quickly at the ceiling.”

They smile at each other, tense and forced, and Erin can see Jennifer digging her fingernails into her napkin.

In an attempt to break the rising tension, Erin clears her throat softly. “So, Sara’s a really great kid.”

“Thank you,” Jennifer says, but she’s staring at Bradley as she says it. “Or should I say, _grazie_.”

This time when Bradley rolls his eyes, it’s dramatic and accompanied by a heavy, irritated sigh.

“Oh,” Erin says, softly, and takes a sip of her water just so she has something to do. It’s going to be a long night.

And it is.

They spend almost an hour in silence, except for Erin’s increasingly desperate attempts to break the awkwardness, but she’s almost given up. She picks at her risotto, which is undeniably delicious, but anxiety is crashing over her in increasingly heavy waves, and the few bites she’s had sit like a rock in her stomach. She thinks she’ll bring it home to Holtz. Holtz loves Italian food, and food in general, really.

“So, this is fun,” she says, and she thinks that Jennifer can hear the catch in her voice because she gives Erin a warm smile.

“Yes, it is.” She curls her hand over Erin’s, where it’s resting on the table, and Erin can’t help but look at Bradley, who’s pointedly looking in the other direction. At that moment, a new song starts. It’s purely instrumental, and it has a familiar melody to it, but Erin can’t place it.

“Oh, I love this song!” Jennifer says, at the exact same time Bradley rolls his eyes (again) and grouses, “I hate this song.” They both whip their heads toward each other, and glare. Bradley turns to Erin, smiling, but tightly.

“Our entire eight-hour drive to Sorrento, Jennifer hummed this song,” he says, maintaining an uncomfortable eye contact with Erin, that Erin has to break.

“Well, it wouldn’t have been eight hours if you hadn’t gotten lost,” Jennifer says, stabbing at her ravioli (Which she had ordered, half an hour earlier, staring challengingly at Bradley the entire time) with a fork. She twists to Erin, who really, really doesn’t want to be pulled into this. “At one point, we were just following some donkeys.”

A waiter comes to refill their wine glasses, and Erin grasps onto the small break in desperation. “Oh look, it’s wine! I love wine!”

“They were not _donkeys_ ,” Bradley says, making a wide, violent gesture.

“I can’t even remember what we were talking about!” Erin says, in what she hopes is an easy manner. She takes a large sip of wine.

“It wasn’t a road,” Jennifer says, curling her hand around the stem of her own wineglass.

Bradley pushes back from the table, and Erin watches him in horror.

“For the millionth time, just because a road’s not on the map, doesn’t mean it’s not a road!”

“Inside voice,” Erin squeaks. She can feel people start to stare, and the blush crawling up her face.

Jennifer pushes back, and Erin squeaks again, leaning away slightly. “Do you know what means it’s not a road? When there are guys in tanks telling you to turn around!”

“Oh, come on! Those were two kids in a jeep!”

“Car gets stuck in the mud, and noooo, you could not move it!”

“Oh, here it is.”

“Because god forbid you break a nail!”

“I’m not doing this!” Bradley says, talking as loud as possibly without actually screaming, “I’m not doing this!” He makes a violent sweeping gesture with his hand.

“Oh, no, you’re not doing this!” Jennifer meets him in volume, “I’m leaving!” She punctuates her words by slamming her hands down on the table, palms flat.

“Oh, no, you haven’t finished your _raviolis_ yet!”

“Oh, that’s it!”

And Erin watches, in horror and embarrassment, as Jennifer and Bradley glare at each other across the table, fire in their eyes, chests heaving, teeth bared.

And, there’s something. There’s something there, a spark, maybe, and for some reason, it makes Erin feel awful.

-

“It was crazy,” Erin says. She’s flat on her back on the couch, and Abby’s sitting on the end of it, laptop open in her lap. She turns her head just enough to meet Abby’s eyes. “There was this serious heat between them.”

“Does he still have feelings for her?” Abby asks, looking up from her computer screen.

Erin shrugs, an awkward movement lying down. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She picks at her fingernails.

“You should talk to Jennifer.”

“But it’s awkward,” Erin says, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “How do you even broach a subject like that?”

“Hey, Jennifer, I know this is weird but so was that dinner yesterday, and hey I think your ex-husband may still be in love with you?”

“I can’t do that!” Erin gasps in horror, and Abby shrugs, one shoulder lifting up and down.

“I don’t know what to tell you, then.”

Erin can only groan.

-

Holtz’s fingers itch to reach for her phone. She knows Rebecca hasn’t replied back to her text, yet, because she has her own special ringtone on Holtz’s phone and she hasn’t heard that ringtone yet.

So she goes up to the roof of the apartment to mope. Which is where Patty finds her, an hour later. She’s sweaty, hair escaping from its pins and sticking to her neck, and she’s covered in grease and half under the heater-slash-nuclear reactor that Abby refuses to let in the loft.

Patty nudges the toe of Holtz’s boot with the side of her foot. “Hey, do you want some lemonade?”

“Lemonade? What is this, the 1950s?” Holtz says, but she slides out from the hunk of machinery, accepting the cold, sweating glass from Patty. Patty plops down in one of the ratty deck chairs, a mug of coffee in her own hands.

“What’s been bothering you?” She asks, getting immedietly to the point, which takes Holtz aback.

“What? Nothing.” Holtz leans back, propping her feet up on one of the empty flowerpots left over from when Abby decided she was going to grow tomatoes. “I’m a-okay, Pattycakes.”

“Baby, you’re not. You’re trying to seem like you are, but you’re not.” Patty takes a sip of coffee. “Does it have anything to do with Erin dating Jennifer?”

Holtz huffs. “NO. I already went over this with Abby, like, three times. Four if you count the time she stayed after hours at the bar and we both got drunk, although I’m preeeety sure we danced to U2, so I don’t think anything we did that night counts.”

“Then what is it? Because something’s clearly been getting under your skin.”

“Patty, I swear, nothing is going on.”

“Holtzy.”

The one word, so full of knowing nearly breaks Holtz, but she forces herself to give a flippant smile. “Psst,” she says, flapping her hands at Patty. “I’m great. Fantastic, even. All around amazing, as usual.”

Patty stares at her for a long time, before standing up. “Okay, fine. But I’m here for y’all if you need me, okay?”

“I knoooow,” Holtz says in an amused whine, ducking as Patty reaches out to ruffle her hair. She waits until she hears the door to the stairs slam closed before deflating. She rubs her hands across her face, pushing her glasses up her forehead. She’s _fine_. Why does everyone keep acting like she’s not? She’s totally, completely fine.

Mostly.

Right next to her right hand, her phone lights up, the text tone a familiar one. She lunges for it, nearly knocking it off the table before she manages to close her fist around it.

It’s Rebecca, like she knew it would be. She opens the text, and when she reads it, her eyebrows fly up in surprise.

But she types back an answer, and before second-guessing comes a-knocking, she hits send.

-

“Fancy meeting you here,” Erin says in a weak attempt at a joke, and she winces as soon as it comes from her mouth, because that’s awful and she never should have said that. But, Jennifer, sitting across the coffee shop table from Erin, smiles. She wraps her hands around her cup of coffee, and tilts her head.

“Hi, Erin.”

“Hi.”

The awkward silence is brief, and Jennifer breaks it first. “So, what’s up?”

“Last night…”

“Oh, god.” Jennifer looks down at her croissant, clearly embarrassed. “I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable. We just can’t be in the same room without wanting to rip each other’s faces off.”

“Yeah,” Erin says, as if she knows the feeling. She doesn’t. “As long as it’s faces, and not clothes.”

She instantly turns a bright, burning red, because _oh my god she can’t believe she said that_.

Jennifer’s head flies up. “Oh my god, you don’t think…?”

“Of course not!” Erin says, quickly, “I just…uh…there was a lot of tension there, last night.”

Jennifer gives a sharp, exhaling laugh. “There’s not a chance in hell. Being with Bradley is like…well, I mean, it’s like this rollercoaster. It’s like standing on the bow of a catamaran, blasted with spray during the perfect storm. But you’re naked and you’re on fire. Y’know?” The words come out with a gasp, something behind Jennifer’s eyes changing.

Erin nods, and she doesn’t understand why there’s a lump in her throat. Jennifer stirs her latte with the little wooden stick before licking off the foam. “We were passionate, of course we were. We were young and we were aching for each other every minute of every day. You know what it’s like, of course.”

“Yeah,” Erin says, even though she doesn’t. The word is lost almost as soon as it leaves her lips, and Jennifer takes a long, slow sip of her latte, letting out another sharp exhale. Erin can see the barest bits of skin below Jennifer’s collarbone, and Erin can tell that it’s flushed.

There’s a hard, heavy feeling, gathering in Erin’s lower stomach, and she looks down at her own drink, her own croissant, and suddenly it seems unappetizing. Jennifer chatters, clearly unaffected by the conversation, talking about this and that, but Erin barely speaks, and when Jennifer asks, Erin passes it off as tiredness.

When they say goodbye, Jennifer pecks Erin on the lips, the kiss chaste and light, only bumping her lips against Erin’s, and it makes Erin feel _hollow_.

-

Erin watches as Holtz bounces her way through the store, with all the excitement of a young child. She paws through racks of clothes that look like they were made before she was born, fills her arms with bits of old parts; telephones and radios and cassette players that look like they’ve been broken for decades. She stretches on her toes to peer at the top of shelves, exclaims over dusty old books, and generally looks like she just walked into Disneyland.

Erin wonders if she’s missing something. Because, yes, the thrift store is mildly interesting, but it also smells like dust and mothballs, and it makes Erin itch. Holtz doesn’t seem to notice Erin’s discomfort. Instead, she paws through shelves of old trinkets.

“Hey, Holtz?”

“Yep?” Holtz says, cheerfully.

“Do you believe in passion?” The question had been burning at Erin since her conversation with Jennifer that morning. She couldn’t ask Abby, who would probably either laugh or start talking about how, yes, sex may feel good, but have you ever put on a hoodie still warm from the dryer? And Patty would either just laugh, or she’d go uncomfortably into detail, or she’d want to have an intense heart to heart, and all three options seemed super overwhelming to Erin at this moment.

Holtz pauses, hands stilling. “Is there are a particular reason you’re asking this question?” She asks, carefully, and Erin drags the toe of her tennis shoe along the scuffed floor of the store.

“No,” she says at first, then, so quietly Holtz can probably barely hear her, admits, “Yes.”

Holtz raises her eyebrow, clearly waiting for more information, but when Erin doesn’t volunteer it, continues her search through the shelves, moving aside ceramic figures and ugly flower vases. “Yes. I mean, I think so.” She glances at Erin, quickly, before returning her attention to the- is that a taxidermized mouse? -thing in her hands. “I guess Rebecca and I had passion, sure. I mean, there were some days where we could barely wait to get into each other’s pants. I’m pretty sure I still have marks from more of our energetic couplings. I mean, there was one night-“

“Holtz.”

Holtz grins crookedly. “Fiiine.” She rolls her eyes, smiling at Erin with her tongue between her teeth. “Yeah. I believe in passion. Rebecca and I definitely had it, especially when we rekindled our relationships. I don’t believe Rebecca and I were soulmates, but I’m not even sure I believe in soulmates, anyways.”

“You don’t believe in soulmates?”

Holtz shrugs. “It’s a nice idea, sure, but it’s kind of limiting, isn’t it? It’s the idea that there’s one person, and only one person, out there for you. And like…what if you’re just always at the wrong place at the wrong time, and never meet?” She gives Erin a tiny smile, a barely-there smile. “I don’t know, but I don’t really like that side of it. I much prefer the idea of true love.”

“Isn’t that the same thing? Soulmates and true love?” Erin asks, curious.

“I think to some people, sure. But I more think true love is something that grows, and it implies work and actual relationships, and not instalove, eyes locked across the room and they knew they’d die for each other even though they’ve never met kind of love.” Holtz rocks back on her heels. “Which is kind of off-topic. Yeah. I believe in passion.”

“Oh,” Erin whispers, the strange feeling of hollowness back in her gut. Holtz doesn’t seem to hear here, because the next thing Erin knows, Holtz is shoving a porcelain doll in Erin’s face, delightedly asking, “Isn’t this the creepiest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Erin laughs even as she cringes, batting the doll away. “Don’t get that thing near me. It looks like it’s possessed.”

Holtz looks down at the doll, and laughs. “I guess we’re the perfect owners, then!”

“Holtzmann, no!”

“Holtzmann, yes! I’m going to buy it and scare Patty.”

And, true to her word, she does, practically skipping from the store, heavy gray back making a clunking sound every time it hits her leg, heavy with broken gadgets and other things that Holtz refers to as treasures. Erin lets herself get pulled along by Holtzmann, as if there’s an anchor hooking somewhere behind her bellybutton and yanking her along.

And, for some reason, the thought that in an hour or two she’s going to have to rip herself away and go to Jennifer’s is nearly unbearable, because she wants this easy energy to continue. So when Holtz turns around, walking backwards and nearly crashing into a light post, asking Erin if she wants to go get cake or cheesesteaks, Erin says yes.

-

They’re on Jennifer’s couch. Jennifer is reading. Erin is grading papers. They’re not touching. They’re not really even talking. Jennifer’s taking sips out of a glass of wine, and she has been for the last hour. Erin has a mug of herbal tea on the coffee table in front of her.

Erin can’t stop glancing at Jennifer. Jennifer doesn’t look up from her book. Erin watches her for a moment, and puts her papers down. Jennifer looks up for a moment, meets Erin’s eyes, almost smiles, and looks down again. Erin takes a deep breath, stealing herself, and crawls closer.

She kisses Jennifer, and Jennifer makes a surprised sound, but kisses her back. Erin winds a hand around Jennifer’s hips, pulling her closer. She keeps waiting to feel the flickering of fire, the gathering of heat low in her stomach, and there’s a little bit, a tiny bit, but it’s not building, not even when Jennifer wraps her arms around Erin’s waist.

So Erin kisses her harder, harder, leaning her weight against Jennifer, keeps waiting for the fire to build, but she turns her head a little bit too quickly, and her teeth hit Jennifer’s, and Jennifer pulls away with yelp, cupping her mouth.

“Ow! Erin!” She pulls her hand away, to prod gently at her tooth. She looks at Erin in shock. “What was that about?”

Erin deflates. She can’t help it. She’s tired and she’s kind of hungry and she has to admit what she’s been suspecting.

“There’s something missing,” she says, not meeting Jennifer’s eyes. “I didn’t know it until I saw you and Bradley the other night, but…then it clicked. I want that! I want what you and Bradley have!”

“You want me to treat you like my ex-husband?” Jennifer says incredulously. “Who I hate.”

“I don’t know,” Erin says, and there’s something in her throat, making the words hard to get out. “I just…you guys have this spark, and I want that spark! You have to admit you have this spark, this passion.”

Jennifer pulls away from Erin, swinging her legs off the edge of the couch. “Passion is overrated, Erin.” The words are cold, almost expressionless.

Erin blinks, hard, and she knows there are tears just waiting to fall. She can’t meet Jennifer’s eyes. “I want to go home.”

“Erin…”

Erin gathers up her stuff, shoving everything in her briefcase. “I just…can you just take me home? Please?”

The ride back to the loft is thick with silence, and Erin stares out the window the entire way, so she doesn’t have to look at Jennifer. She pulls up outside the loft, but doesn’t turn the car off. But when Erin reaches for the door handle, Jennifer speaks.

“I like what we have. I thought you did, too.”

“I do,” Erin says. “I did. I don’t know.” Her fingers beat a tempo against her legs, an anxious tick, one she can’t stop.

“Look, Erin,” Jennifer says, leaning against the seat of the car, turning her head to meet Erin’s eyes. “I’ve already done the crazy, explosive passion before, from when I was with Bradley. And that crashed and burned. It was like edging closer and closer to a wood chipper. I’m not looking for that anymore.”

“But I am,” Erin says. “I’m in my forties and I’ve never had that. And I want it. I desperately, desperately want it. Even if it’s harder, and it hurts more.” She curls her hands into fists. “I’ve played it safe my entire life, about everything in my life, relationships most of all.”

“So, that’s it, then?” Jennifer says, and while her words are calm, her eyes betray the emotions beneath, and it makes Erin ache with guilt.

“I guess so,” Erin says, and before too much time passes, she leans over, kisses Jennifer on the cheek. “Goodbye, Jennifer. And thank you.”

Jennifer smiles, and there are the traces of tears in the corners of her eyes. Erin knows that hers are the same. They don’t say anything else. Erin climbs from the car, tucking her briefcase to her chest. She stands in the doorway to the building, and watches until Jennifer pulls away. And it hurts a little bit, but at the same time, it’s oddly freeing.

-

Erin thought the loft would be empty, which is why it’s a surprise that there’s jazz music drifting out from somewhere in the loft. She tosses her briefcase in the general direction of the couch and follows the sound of the music. She hopes it’s Abby, because Abby is always up for listening, and right now Erin really wants to talk. She doesn’t feel sad, yet, but she knows that the sadness will come, and maybe if she gets it over with, it won’t be as bad.

But, instead, it’s Holtz’s door that opens, and it’s not Holtz who comes out. It’s a woman, dark-haired and tall, all long-limbs and curly hair. Rebecca Gorin freezes, looking surprised but not embarrassed to see Erin in the hallway.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Gilbert,” she says in a cool, calm voice.

“Hi,” Erin squeaks out. She’s only wearing one of Holtz’s t-shirts, and nothing else. Erin isn’t sure where to look, because eye contact seems uncomfortable but nowhere else seems comfortable, either, so she settles on the bridge of Rebecca’s nose. “How are you doing?”

“Wonderful,” Rebecca says, with all the emotion of a robot. “If you’ll excuse me, I was on my way to the restroom.” She goes down the hallway, and as soon as she’s out of side, Erin turns the corner into Holtz’s room.

“Rebecca?” Erin hisses, pointing in the direction the woman headed.

Holtz pops up from her bed. She’s dressed, at least. Or, mostly, in a t-shirt and boxers with little cartoon ghosts on them. “Yeah, I know. We’ve been texting for a few days, and she texted me this morning so I called her!” Holtz grins at Erin like she’s expecting a congratulations, but Erin can only feel an irrational, building anger.

“What are you doing?” She asks, and she knows the anger is bleeding into her voice. “You guys had a terrible relationship!”

Now, anger washes across Holtz’s face. “I don’t know how that’s any of your business,” she says, coldly. “Besides, it was because of you that I contacted her!”

“What? How is that possible?”

“All your talk about passion!” Holtz says, waving her hands. “You planted the idea into my head, so you might as well own up to it!”

“That is not what I meant!” Erin growls, and Holtz looks at her in disgust.

“What the hell is your problem, anyways?”

“Have fun making terrible like decisions!” Erin snaps, and something dangerous goes across Holtz’s face.

“Oh, you just know everything, don’t you?” She snarls, crossing her arms. “Erin Gilbert, the _professor_.” Her voice is mocking, and Erin can feel her face flush with an angry heat.

“I don’t know everything-!“

“I am so sick of you!” Holtz snaps, and she and Erin are practically chest to chest.

“I’m just disappointed in you!” Erin retorts, even though her voice is steadily rising to a yell. “Rebecca! Really!?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll be more like you, Erin.” Holtz’s voice is rising, too. “Only have safe, boring relationships, and every night I’ll come home and put some dumb pajama outfit on and pretend like my is perfect even though it’s not, and then tell other people how to live their lives!”

“They’re not pajama outfits, they’re just pajamas!”

“That’s what I said!” They’re screaming, now, and Erin knows, somewhere in the back of her brain that there’s no way that Rebecca can’t hear them, but she can’t bring herself to care.

“Do you know what, Holtzmann? Go back into your room and put on your stupid glasses and keep not living up to your potential!”

“You’re a crazy person, Erin!”

“I am NOT!” Erin roars, and she and Holtz are practically nose to nose at this point. “I’m just saying things you don’t want to hear!”

“Do you know what I’d like to hear from you, Erin? SILENCE!”

“FINE!” Erin’s heart is pounding, and she’s in Holtz’s personal space as much as Holtz as in hers. “Yell at me! And stop making that face at me! I hate that face!”

“THIS IS MY ONLY FACE,” Holtz screams, “IT IS AN AMAZING FACE, AND RIGHT NOW YOU DON’T DESERVE TO SEE IT.” She storms away, and Erin can hear her door slam shut.

“REAL MATURE, HOLTZ!” Erin screams down the hallway. “JUST RUN AWAY! THAT’S GREAT!”

She slams the door to her room, too, because she’s just so angry, and she doesn’t know _why_. She paces her room, jittery and wound up, heart pounding, blood pumping, chest heaving. Finally, she collapses face down into her bed, and screams, letting her pillows muffle her frustration.

-

Holtz can’t sleep. There’s an odd tingling in her limbs, and so she stares at the ceiling. Beside her, Rebecca is asleep, has been for hours, and Erin has been quiet for hours, too. Holtz feels guilty for the entire argument, because it’s clear, now that she looks back on it, that something happened with Erin and Jennifer. She’ll apologize in the morning, when there’s a few hours and at least some sleep between them and the argument.

Still, she keeps replaying it in her mind, the fight, and at the same time, her mind keeps going back to the conversation in the thrift store, of Erin asking about passion.

The two Erins bounce in her mind, the red-faced, furious Erin of a few hours ago, and the timid, slightly embarrassed Erin of that afternoon. They shouldn’t mesh in Holtz’s mind, and they don’t, not really, but at the same time, they do, and it’s confusing and doesn’t make sense and makes Holtz’s head spin.

Beside her, Rebecca makes a soft, breathy sigh in her sleep, and probably unintentionally, because Rebecca isn’t a really touchy-feely type of person, tosses an arm over Holtz’s stomach. Holtz traces the line of Rebecca’s arm, and tries to forget about Erin, because Erin was wrong. She and Rebecca will work out. Fourth time’s the charm, because they’ve been dating off and on since college, and there must be a reason.

Holtz is happy. She’s happy, in bed with a beautiful girl, who she’s pretty sure is her girlfriend again. She’s happy, she really, really is.

So why does she keep having to tell herself that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PASSION.
> 
> You know, it's kind of ironic that I'm writing this (raging asexual that I am), because in real life this whole "passion" thing sounds kind of overrated, but writing it? Reading it? I love it.
> 
> Anyways, thank you all for your kind comments and kudos! Also, come and find me on Tumblr! I'm shy, so it's kind of unlikely that I'll seek you out unless you specificly tell me to do so.


	9. Jillian Holtzmann, You Magnificent Dumbass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and chapter inspired by the episode "Backslide"

 

 

Erin does her typical break-up thing. She has like three days where she pretends everything is normal, then she has her sob over everything even mildly related to her ex, and then, she watches Dirty Dancing. Except, unlike after she broke up with Phil, the living room is often occupied by Holtz and Rebecca, acting for all the world a gushy, new couple, and Erin really can’t stomach it so she settles for curling up on her bed, and listening to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on repeat.

There’s a gentle knock on the door, and Patty slides in. She’s holding Erin’s favorite mug, the one Holtz got her as a joke for her birthday, ‘the frequency of bad physics puns hertz’ printed on it in big, block letters.

“Hey, baby,” Patty says, coming carefully to the side of Erin’s bed. “I made you some tea. I’m just going to leave it here, okay?” She sets it down, and backs up. “So…Jennifer. I mean, ouch. Who saw that coming? Not me. And not Jennifer, either, now that I think about it.”

She laughs, uncomfortably, and Erin feels the guilt wash over her, and she may start crying again a little bit, because Patty looks horrified. She pats Erin’s shoulder, again awkwardly.

“I’m going to leave, now.” She practically flees the room.

Abby comes next. She doesn’t say anything, she just sits on Erin’s bed, and waits. At first, Erin pretends like she’s not there, but there are words burning at the tip of her tongue, and eventually, she has to let them out.

“Jennifer was perfect,” Erin says, sitting up. “What’s wrong with me? Am I self-sabotaging?” She rubs at her face with the heels of her hands, the skin under her eyes raw and sore.

“You didn’t love him,” Abby says, simply.

“But what if I have some idea of love in my head, some perfect, impossible idea of love, and it’s totally wrong? What if I had with Jennifer is actually love, and I just didn’t know it?”

“A romanticized version of romance?”

“Yeah.” Erin picks at a loose thread on her bedspread. “And it’ll be years later, and I still haven’t found this idea of love that I’ve made up in my head, and I’m alone? I don’t want to be alone, Abby.”

“First off, it’s bullshit, this idea that you can’t be happy when you’re single,” Abby says, and there’s a bit of heat in her voice. “I’m single, and I’m never going to have a romantic relationship, and I’m perfectly happy. And secondly, where you happy with Jennifer?”

“Yes,” Erin says, a little bit too fast, then looks down at her hands. “No,” she admits, softly. “I think I maybe was trying to be, but there was…well…”

“Something missing?”

“Something missing,” Erin agrees. “And I want whatever that missing thing was, because I’ve never had it. Not with Jennifer, not with Phil, not with anyone.”

“And it’s okay to want that,” Abby says, patting Erin’s leg. “It’s okay to leave a relationship because of that. If you’re not happy now, chances are you’ll never be happy.” She slides off Erin’s bed. “Come on. I don’t think you’ve left your room in twelve hours. Let’s go get a drink.”

“I can’t,” Erin says regretfully, even as she lets Abby haul her to her feet. “I have to teach, then I have a meeting after my lecture, and it wouldn’t look good for me to show up drunk.”

“How about ice cream, then? Don’t women eat ice cream after they break up?”

“I’ll take you up on that later, okay?” Erin squeezes her friend’s arm. “Thanks, though.”

As she leaves the loft, she sees Rebecca and Holtzmann in the living room. Rebecca is smirking, Holtzmann is dancing to some song on the radio, the thing that used to be known as their washing machine in pieces around her.

Erin pretends she doesn’t see them.

-

Holtz sits on the bench in the bathroom, watching as Rebecca curls her hair. She has to be at work in half an hour, and it will take her at least twenty minutes to get there, but she doesn’t care. She props her elbows on her knees.

“So, any spectacular plans for today?” Holtz asks, and Rebecca glances over at her, curling iron in her hand.

“I’m going to be seeing an apartment at four,” Rebecca says, and in a smooth, practiced motion, removes the curling iron from her head.

“You’re moving?” The thought is odd. Ever since Holtz has known her, Rebecca has lived in the same apartment. It’s an old lady apartment, sure, and the living room and bedroom are the same room, and the bathroom is so small that you could wash your hands while still sitting on the toilet (Holtz tried, once), but it’s always been Rebecca’s apartment.

“I’m a grown woman, Jillian,” Rebecca says, almost coldly. “And I’ve long-since outgrown my apartment. I’d rather like to have space.” She leans toward the mirror, and dabs on a bit of lipstick. “You’re welcome to come with me.”

“To see an apartment?”

“To see my new apartment,” Rebecca corrects. “There’s still a few final pieces of paperwork to go through, but it’s mine for all intents and purposes.”

Holtz shrugs. “Sure. I’ll come with.” She stretches like a cat, rotating her shoulders as she does. “It sounds more interesting that sitting around here all afternoon.”

“I’ll pick you up at the bar,” Rebecca says, and like that, plans are made.

-

The apartment is huge. Too big for one person, which is Holtz’s first thought. But there’s something gloriously inviting about the large, empty rooms and polished hardwood floors, so she kicks off her boots by the door and slides through the apartment on her socks. Or she does until Rebecca makes a small noise of disproval in her throat, and Holtz stops, even though the empty hallways call to her.

But still. She’s excited, and even though she doesn’t slide, she spins around in the newest room with her arms out. “Look at this place! I mean, look at that fireplace! It’s huge!” She gestures excitedly, words falling over each other in her haste to get them out. “No, I’m wrong, it’s not a fireplace, it’s a room you can safely set on fire!”

She spins, again, twirling on her toes even though she knows Rebecca thinks that this sort of behavior is childish, and bounces off the wall when her spin goes a bit wild. She steadies herself against the same wall, floor tilting a little bit as her head spins with dizziness, and she grins at Rebecca. “It’s very nice. So grown up!”

“It is nice,” Rebecca says, nodding, even though her voice betrays no excitement whatsoever. “However, it is a lot of space that needs to be filled.”

“Oh, y’know, that’s easy!” Holtz says, cheerfully. “Buy a couple of bookshelves, maybe one of those couches that are a full square with a hole in the middle…fill the empty space right up!”

“I was thinking you could fill it.”

Holtz’s smile falters, just for a moment. “Are you…are you saying you want me to move in with you?”

Rebecca nods, once, her head going slowly up and down. “Am I wrong in assuming that we are doing our relationship again?”

“Noooo?” Holtz says, slowly, although her voices pitches upwards at the end, as if she’s asking a question. She’s been thinking that’s where they were headed, sure, but she hasn’t even called Rebecca her girlfriend yet (again), and, for some reason, her mind goes quickly to Erin, although she shoves the image away as fast as it appears.

“I feel as if we’re going to do this again, we should not be starting again at the beginning,” Rebecca says, moving closer to Holtz. Holtz tilts her head, to the side and upwards, to meet Rebecca’s eyes. “We are not fumbling twenty-year-old’s in the bathroom at a college party anymore. We are not children, despite how some of us may appear.”

Holtz can feel the sting from her words, said so casually, and clearly directed at her, but she doesn’t let it wiggle under her skin. She grabs Rebecca’s hips, pulling her closer. “Oh?” She says throatily, raising an eyebrow.

“Think about it.”

Rebecca untangles herself from Holtz’s grasp, ducking away from Holtz’s playful attempt to kiss her, and smooths the front of her jacket. “I’ll need to know sooner rather than later, however, because I need to know if I should put your name on the lease.”

“Okay!” Holtz says, and Rebecca’s gone, heading toward the doorway, leaving Holtz scrambling to chase after her.

-

“ABBY PATTY ERIN, COME OUT COME OUT WHEREEVER YOU ARE!” Holtz yells into the loft, dumping her backpack next to the door, before heading further into the loft. Abby appears first, around the corner, arms crossed.

“What is it, Holtzmann?”

“I have amazing news!” Holtz sings, flopping down on the couch. “Rebecca is looking for a new apartment!”

“So?”

“So? So?” Holtz scoffs. “Soooo…she asked me to move in with her! And I’m seriously considering it!” She flips over so she’s on her back, head hanging off the edge of the couch, grinning at Abby upside down.

“Oh, oh, cool.” Abby says, and Holtz feels a flicker of confusion.

“Really? Cool? I thought your reaction would be telling me that I’m making a terrible mistake and that Rebecca is awful to me and doesn’t deserve me and all that.”

“What? No!” Abby sounds offended, right up until she yells, “PATTY! CODE RED!” and launches herself at Holtz.

“Wait! What?” Holtz squawks, attempting to flip over, but Abby’s fast, and before Holtz knows it, Abby’s sitting on her legs and keeping her arms pinned to the cushions.  Holtz bucks in an attempt to move her, but Abby just shifts her wait.

Patty flies around the corner, an envelope in her hands. Holtz recognizes the envelope, and her attempts to escape Abby’s grasp get wilder.

Patty waves the envelope in the air.  It has Holtz’s handwriting on it, smudged and messy, barely legible. “You entrusted this to me, almost exactly a year ago. And you were right to do so!” She rips open the powder blue envelope just as Holtz manages to get one hand free, batting at Abby. Abby digs a knee into Holtz’s thigh as she attempts to catch her flailing arm with one hand, and the pain makes Holtz grit her teeth.

“You wrote this letter a week after Rebecca dumped you last time!” Patty says, and although Holtz can’t see her, she imagines that Patty is making a dramatic gesture, because Holtz can hear the paper wrinkle.

“Hello, Jillian Holtzmann,” Patty reads, voice getting louder as the sounds of Holtz and Abby scuffling gets louder. “You magnificent dumbass. If Patty is reading this to you, you decided to get back with Rebecca. Idiot. She destroyed you. She ripped your heart to pieces.”

“Patty, stop reading!” Holtz manages to get out, before Abby uses her free hand to cover her mouth. Holtz uses her one unwrapped arm to try and push Abby off using her face, and all that achieves is knocking her glasses askew.

“She dumped you three times!” Patty keeps reading, even as she steps forward to help Abby hold Holtz down. “She treats you like you’re a stupid child! She takes away everything that makes you happy. If you get back together with you, you’re only willingly signing on for more heartbreak. This letter has the tear stains to prove it. She’s a cold-hearted evil ghost of a woman, and you should not get back together with her for any means! Love from past you, Holtz.”

Patty folds the letter up, sticks in her pocket. Holtz stops thrashing, panting for breath. Abby’s gasping, too, and rolls off Holtz, looking around for her glasses.

“Guys, I get what you’re doing and all, but you shouldn’t be.” Holtz gets up off the couch, tugging her pants back up. “But the Rebecca that broke my heart is a different Rebecca that the one I’m dating! A different one that the Rebecca that's picking me up in five minutes!”

Patty shakes her head. “Baby, you’ve said that every time. And every time you’ve come back a month or two later, looking like she broke you.”

Holtz shakes her head. “But this time it’s true. And do you really want me to be living alone in this loft for the rest of my life?”

Abby sits up. “Look, Holtz. I get it. I had practically the same conversation with Erin earlier. You can want love, but whatever _this_ is…” she waves her hand in the general direction of Holtz, then the letter. “This isn’t love. It’s not healthy.”

Holtz shakes her head, shoving her hands deep in the pockets of her smoking jacket. “You guys don’t understand.”

“Holtzy…” Patty reaches for her, but Holtz steps backwards, out of the way. There’s a lump in her throat, and she’s not sure why.

“I'm going to wait for Rebecca downstairs,” Holtz mumbles, and she’s not making eye contact with either of them. “Thanks, I guess.”

Suddenly, the air in the loft feels stifling, and she flees the situation, as fast as she can.

-

The bar isn’t technically open anymore. It closes at ten on Wednesday nights, but Holtz is cleaning up and Erin couldn’t bare the thought of just going home, returning to her bedroom, and thinking about Jennifer, so she goes to the Griffon. Holtz lets her in with a wink, and now, Erin is sitting at the bar, stirring the ice cube in her drink with a little plastic sword, watching as Holtz cleans up.

There had been something off about Holtz, a bit of a catch behind her smile, a kind of heaviness in her voice, but it’s slowly been vanishing, and, now, she seems like her normal dance, laughing and happy, singing and dancing to whatever song is on the jukebox. At one point, immersed in her performance, she leaps over the counter in one, smooth movement, only to go sprawling on the floor when she lands. She pops back up to her feet, still singing, still dancing, and Erin laughs until her sides hurt.

The minutes pass quickly, because ten turns to eleven, and ticks steadily toward midnight, and they’re still there, and Erin is feeling the warmth of whiskey in her blood, and Holtz is bottling up all the drink garnishes. She has a little bowl of maraschino cherries on the table next to her, maybe six or seven, but instead of dumping them back into the large tub, she eats them.

Erin’s transfixed. She can’t tear her eyes off Holtz, watching as she pops the cherries into her mouth. She can’t take her eyes off of Holtz’s lips, off her tongue, barely peeking out to lick at a drop of the juice at the corner of her mouth.

There’s a heat building low in Erin’s pelvis, and a heat building in her chest, and her heartrate is speeding up. She doesn’t know why, but she can’t stop watching. At one point, Holtz rounds the bar, regretfully telling Erin that they have to go, and Erin’s in a strange sort of daze.

Holtz still dances, though, all the way to turning off the jukebox, and Erin watches the movement of her hips. Holtz notices her looking, and her dance instantly turns sexual, a slow wind of her pelvis, accompanied by a wink and her bottom lip beneath her teeth, one hand tangling in her hair, the other at her neck. Erin can feel her flush crawling up her neck, but she can’t rip her eyes away.

This. This. She shouldn’t be feeling like this, because Holtzmann is her friend, and friends don’t feel this way about other friends, it’s just not done.

But she can’t take her eyes away.

Holtz turns the jukebox off. They go outside. They stand in the parking lot, waiting for the Uber to get there, and despite the heat that’s still coursing through her veins, Erin shivers at the cool, late-night breeze. Holtz notices.

“Do you want my jacket?” She offers, and Erin laughs a little and shakes her head.

“No, I should have brought a coat.”

“Really, take it!” Holtz whips the coat off her shoulders and around Erin’s, even as Erin protests. “I’m kind of overheated, anyways. Dancing makes me hot.” She punctuates the sentence with a flirty wink, and the molten heat flares in Erin again.

The jacket smells like Holtzmann. Like the smoky air of the bar and shampoo and fabric softener and the subtle, vanilla and cinnamon perfume Holtz always wears, and something in Erin’s lungs _catches_. Holtz is talking, still talking, and Erin can’t stop watching even though she’s not really listening, watching the way she gestures with her hands and tilts her head as she thinks and the way her dimples flash when she smiles.

Erin is tipsy bordering on drunk, and she’s newly broken up and she is exhausted, which is maybe why she does it. That’s why she does it. That’s why, when Holtz looks Erin’s way, smiling her huge, toothy smile, Erin kisses her.

That’s why she does it.

Not because of the way Holtz laughs and smiles and dances, not because of heat-slash-arousal gathering in her belly, not because she thinks she’s had a crush on Holtz for the longest of times.

She kisses her, hard and breathlessly and _dangerously_ , and her heart is trying to beat from her chest. Holtz’s lips taste like cherries, sticky and sweet, and Erin wants to lick the flavor away, wants to taste _Holtz_. She pulls Holtz closer until they’re so, so close. Hips against hips, chests against chests, and Erin wraps her arms around Holtz’s back, and Holtz has her hands on Erin’s hips.

And she’s kissing Erin back. Fiercely, passionately, she’s kissing Erin back, and Erin can feel her fingernails dig into the small space of skin where her shirt has ridden up.

There is fire flowing through her veins, setting her alight, limb by limb, inch by inch. And she never, ever wants this to stop. Because for the first time, she’s feeling the _spark_.

Because for the first time in months, she’d admitting it to herself. She’s in love with Holtzmann.

Erin has been falling in love with Holtzmann, day by day, week by week, month by month. She’s been falling in love with this brilliant, goofy, infuriating woman, slowly and steady, and now it’s like a dam has broken.

Erin Gilbert is in love with her roommate. Erin Gilbert is in love, inconceivably, uncontrollably, with her best friend.

And, right now, she is so, so happy.

But Holtzmann pushes her away.

Erin gasps like she just ran a marathon, heart galloping in her chest, and looks at Holtzmann in shock. Holtzmann takes a step back, and she’s not meeting Erin’s eyes.

“Holtz?” Erin asks, hesitantly, because this was good, right? Because Holtz was kissing her back, right?

Holtz stares at the pavement, and when Erin reaches for her, she evades her touch, scrambling out of the way.

“I can’t.”

A rock is forming in Erin’s gut. “What?” She chokes out, and Holtz finally, finally looks up at her, and there are so many emotions in her brilliant, blue eyes that Erin can’t pick out any specific ones.

“You can’t?”

“Erin, I…I’m moving in with Rebecca. We signed the lease on the apartment this afternoon.”

Erin’s heart drops from her chest, shattering on the cold, hard pavement below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE DON'T KILL ME FOR HOW I ENDED THIS CHAPTER.
> 
> And I'll try my hardest to get the final chapter up tomorrow!


	10. I Need To Tell My Best Friend I Love Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title inspired by episode "Five Stars for Beezus", chapter inspired by episodes "Five Stars for Beezus" and "See Ya"
> 
> ALSO, really quickly, I wrote the final scene(s) while listening to Green Light by Lorde (which, if you watch the show, you'll recognize super quickly), so as soon as you get to the part that says "Erin hears the yelling from outside the loft" maybe turn on the song and listen to it while you read the last bit?

It feels like she ruined everything. Erin and Holtz can barely make eye contact, and now the loft is full of boxes. Boxes of Holtz’s stuff, neatly packaged, labeled, and ready to be loaded into the moving van. And, at first, it’s only one or two, and mostly it’s stuff from Holtz’s room, which Erin has been avoiding, anyways, so it’s easy to ignore.

But then, she goes to find a book on the bookshelf, and it’s missing, and half of the goofy coffee mugs in the cupboard are gone, and the oldest, softest blanket on the couch is nowhere to be found. And Erin know that they’re in boxes, somewhere, and that hurts.

It’s like all the little pieces of Holtzmann scattered across the loft are disappearing, and soon it will be like she was never even there.

The thought makes something inside her chest go tight and hard, and she has to go and sit in her closest until the feeling subsides, which is where Abby finds her.

“Are you okay, Er?” Abby asks gently, sliding down to sit next to Erin.

“I think I ruined everything,” Erin says, and there are tears pushing out behind her eyes, and her head throbs.

“How so?”

“I kissed her, Abby,” Erin says, and she can’t meet her friend’s eyes as she says it. “I kissed her. I knew she was dating Rebecca and I kissed her.”

“And?” Abby’s voice is knowing, and that’s what breaks Erin.

“And I’m not sorry,” Erin whispers, “I’m not sorry I kissed her, and that makes me feel awful and _guilty,_ because I know how awful it is to be cheated on, but I’m not sorry.”

She isn’t sorry. Because she keeps remembering how it felt, kissing Holtz. How right it felt, the way they moved together seamlessly, as if they were made to be kissing each other. How she felt the _spark,_ how it set her alight in a way she didn’t know was possible.

“Did you tell her this?”

“No,” Erin says, shaking her head. “She told me she was moving in with Rebecca, and I just kind of…ran. I walked back to the apartment.”

“What... Erin! That’s almost five miles! At _night_ in _LA_!”

Erin laughs, once, hard and sharp, because Abby sounds more angry at her for doing this, then for kissing Holtzmann. “I had my pepper spray.”

“Still!” Abby whacks Erin on the arm. “That was stupid! You don’t do that! It’s dangerous.”

Erin rubs her arm where Abby hit her, but it doesn’t hurt, not really. If anything, she wishes it hurt more, to give her a physical pain to focus on instead of the pain deep in her ribcage, the barbed wire wrapped around her heart, brutal and agonizing. She leans her head against Abby’s shoulder.

“What am I going to do, Abby?” She asks, and a tear drips down her nose. “I wish I could take it back, because at least we’d still be friends.”

Abby rests her hand on top of Erin’s, squeezing gently. “I think this will all work out in the end. I think you’ll be friends again.”

“But what if we’re not? Or what if we are, and it’s awful because now I know, and now that I know I can’t be friends with her? I felt the spark, Abby, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that.”

Abby is silent for a long, long time. When she finally speaks, it’s slowly, softly, almost as if she doesn’t quite know what she’s saying yet.

“I think…I think that everything will work out in the end. And that maybe life will surprise you.”

Erin doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t make her feel any better.

-

Holtz’s moving day comes too fast and yet too slowly at the same time, and they’re all standing on the sidewalk outside the loft. Erin wraps her arms around herself, watching as Holtz shoves the last box into the moving truck, then jumps up to pull the door down and latch it shut.

“So, this is it,” Holtz says, brushing her hands together. “Thanks for helping me move.”

“Of course, baby,” Patty says, and grins, bumping Abby’s hip. “I call shotgun!”

“No, Patty!”

They both take off toward the front of the truck, and it makes Erin irrationally angry, because they’re making this easy, for Holtz. They’re making it easy for their best friend to move, they’re making it easy for her to move in with Rebecca. She curls her hands into fists, shoving them deep in the pockets of her hoodie.

Holtz rocks back on her heels, not meeting Erin’s eyes. The silence is long and awkward, and Erin can feel words balancing on the tip of her tongue, brittle as glass, ready and waiting to spill from her lips, because she can think of so many things to say.

She just wants Holtzmann to _stay_. Because every time Erin looks at Holtz, she can feel her breath catch, her heartbeat speed up, because she kissed Holtz and now she _knows._ And she can never forget it, now.

Because if someone asked her what love was, she would answer with Holtzmann.

Their eyes finally, finally meet, and there’s a million things that seem to flow between them, blue eyes meeting blue, and every atom in Erin’s body tells her to move, to take Holtz in her arms, to tell her everything, to whisper the word love in her ear.

But, instead, Holtzmann looks away.

“See you around, Gilbert,” she says, and Erin knows she’s trying to make her voice light, but there’s a hint of heaviness there, and Erin reaches for it desperately, hoping.

But, instead, Holtz gives her a two-fingered salute, and disappears around the moving van. Erin hears a door slam, and the van pulls away from the sidewalk.

And she’s gone.

Erin does the only thing she can do. She goes back into the apartment, and cries.

-

“Rebecca and I are starting a whole new life together,” Holtz says, twisting in her seat to smile and Patty, then Abby, squished in the backseat with a box on her lap. “The apartment is amazing, you guys. The rooms are huge, and you wouldn’t believe the view, and there’s a window seat, can you believe that? I’m going to curl up in that window seat like a damn cat, and just bask in the sunshine.”

She smiles, then points. “Look, that’s the place!”

“That’s the place?” Patty asks, incredulously. “Damn, girl!”

“It’s amazing!” Holtz agrees, as she drives right past it.

“Uh, Holtz?” Abby pipes up from the back. “That’s the place?”

“Yep!” Holtz says, her voice bright and sunny. She keeps driving, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “Right back there!”

“So…aren’t you going to stop?”

“Yeah, it seems like I should.”

“So, what are you doing?”

“I’m freaking out!” Holtz cries out, and with a brutal yank to the steering wheel, veers across four lanes of traffic, bumps across a curb (accidently), and flies up the entrance to the freeway. There’s an odd, jittery panic infecting her fingers, and she pushes the gas down harder, her eyes glued to the road.

“Oh, no,” Patty says softly. “Um, baby? You okay?”

“JILLIAN HOLTZMANN IS FREAKING OUT AGAIN,” Holtz cries, “WHOOP-DE-DO.” She pushes the van faster, the speedometer steadily rising.

“Holtz! Holtzmann! Slow down!” Abby has a death grip on the door handle, and Patty’s face is rapidly losing color. She yelps when Holtz narrowly misses hitting a mini-van and she jerks into another lane, the blare of a car horn following her down the highway.

Holtz can’t stop. She can’t stop. She can’t bring herself to stop, so instead she hits the radio with the palm of her hand, turning it on high enough that she can’t hear Patty or Abby anymore, and goes _faster_.

-

At one point, Holtzmann pulls off the side of the road, bumping across sandy, pale dirt and scrubby brushes, and hits the break so violently that they all jerk forward in their seats, the box in Abby’s lap tumbling off her legs and spilling clothing across the floor.

And Holtz is out of the car. Her head hurts, and her thoughts are spinning and it feels like her throat is closing up. She digs her fingers into her scalp and tries to breath, but there’s something heavy sitting on her chest.

“Holtzy? You okay, baby?” Patty’s voice floats over to her, concerned, but it’s Abby’s voice that breaks through the fog in her head.

“No, she’s totally fine, Patty! We do this every day, we just never invite you!” Abby’s voice is full of anger. “Hey, Holtzmann? I think you overshot the apartment a little bit. By about _a hundred and forty miles_!”

“I’m sorry!” Holtz’s voice is breaking. “I don’t know!” She presses the palms of her hands into her forehead, and takes a long, shuddering breath. “I think I’m good now. I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was about.”

“It’s okay,” Patty says, and holds out her hand. “Just give me the keys and I’ll drive you back to Rebecca, okay?”

Something in Holtz snaps. “Rebecca…no!” She spins on her heels, and hurtles the keys as far into the desert as she possibly can.

She instantly comes to her senses, and gasps. Abby splutters, angry.

“Oh…uh…” she turns, giving her friends what she hopes is an apologetic smile, but she knows is closer to a grimace. “So that was unexpected, huh?”

-

“Hey, Rebecca?” Holtz stands a little ways apart from where Abby and Patty are crawling through the bushes, looking for the keys.

“ _Jillian, where are you? You were supposed to be here two hours ago_!”

Rebecca’s voice is cold, angry, and it makes something in Holtz’s gut seize in a strange sort of fear. She looks at the ground, toeing the dust with the steel-tipped toe of her boot.

“I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a little while before I can get there.”

“ _Why_?”

Holtz closes her eyes. “I’m in the desert. And I lost my keys.”

“ _What?! Jillian, this had better not be a stunt for attention._ ”

“I’m sorry, Becca.” Holtz hates this, hates how Rebecca can make her feel like a little kid again, shamed for doing something, anything, wrong. “I promise, I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“ _Okay. I’ll see you soon, Jillian_.” Rebecca hangs up, leaving Holtz looking at the blank phone in her hand. Patty jogs up.

“Hey, Holtz? Do you want to call Erin? I bet she could come and pick you up.”

“No!” Holtz says, quickly, too quickly, and Patty raises an eyebrow.

“Really? Because it’s going to get dark soon, and I’d prefer not to get eaten alive by coyotes.”

“I can’t,” Holtz says. She collapses against the side of the van, sliding down until her butt hits the dirt. “I can’t spend two hours in a car with her. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Holtz says, and she feels the prickling of tears in the corner of her eyes, and she swipes at them, trying to catch them before they fall. “I can’t. She kissed me, Patty.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.” Holtz fists her hand in the loose fabric of her pants. “And I kissed her back, Patty.”

“Okay.” Patty slides down, so she’s sitting next to Holtz. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Holtz says, then instantly starts talking. “I just…I always thought it was going to be Rebecca for me, y’know?”

She traces a pattern in the dirt with a finger, large and looping, and Patty just sits, quietly next to her, waiting.

Holtz exhales, sharply. “I never really questioned it. It was going to be me and Rebecca. Always. But then Erin comes along, and she’s awkward and timid and she blushes when I flirt with her and laughs and my jokes, and I start to wonder a little bit. Anyone would. And then she gets together with Jennifer, and Rebecca texts me, and, well…”

“Next thing you know, you’re moving in with her.”

Holtz nods, finger stilling. “I always thought I loved Rebecca. But if I did, why would I kiss Erin? Why did I wait so long to tell her to stop?”

Patty pats Holtz’s shoulder. “I think you have to answer that question yourself. Now…” she gets up, and grabs Holtz’s arm to haul her to her feet. “Question it while you help us look for the keys, because I think if we don’t find them soon, Abby’s going to murder one of us.”

So, Holtz does. And she tries to tell herself that there’s not a part of her that hopes the keys stay lost.”

-

Holtz’s empty room beacons her. Erin knows she shouldn’t go in, because it will just hurt her more, but she can’t stop herself.

Holtz’s door looms before her, and Erin reaches up, traces the letters that adorn the door, like ones outside a child’s bedroom.

_Jillian_.

They’re painted in rainbow colors, bright and vibrant and somehow perfect, and despite the hollowness inside Erin, she smiles.

She pushes the door open.

The room still smells like Holtzmann, and Erin takes a deep inhale before she can stop herself. She’s never really been in here before, and the few times she has, she’s been irritated about something, but now, as she spins around, she takes it in.

And there are still things in it. Not a lot, and it’s still clear there isn’t someone living here anymore, but there are a few things. There are posters on the walls, most having stupid, scientific puns that make Erin giggle, a toolbox tucked in the closest, and, right in the middle of the floor, is a hoodie.

The MIT hoodie. The one that Erin had stolen from Holtz, then washed and given back, after the kiss. After something had broken between them.

Erin picks it up, hands trembling. A small piece of paper flutters away, and she stoops to pick up the neon pink sticky note off the floor.

_“Erin,_

_Keep it. “_

It’s not signed, but there’s something crossed out at the end, so heavily that the ink bled through the paper, and Erin thinks she can pick out the word _sorry_.

And it’s stupid, for Holtz to be apologizing, because everything is Erin’s fault, but at the same time, it’s such a Holtz thing to do.

And, for what feels like the millionth time that night, Erin cries.

She sits on the floor, in the middle of the room that used to belong to Holtzmann, clutches a hoodie to her chest, and cries.

Because she wishes she had one more minute. The words _I think I’m in love with you_ , sharp and brittle and there, ready and waiting to be said, but it’s too late. Because Holtzmann is already gone.

-

Night is approaching, and with it there’s a chill in the air, so the three women raid the boxes in the back of the truck and pile on layers. In any other instance, it would be funny to see Patty in a jacket much too small, the sleeves up past her wrists, but Holtz is allowing herself to stew in her misery at the moment, so she can’t bring herself to crack a joke.

Abby’s still out there, using her phone as a flashlight, crawling in the bushes with a blanket tied around her shoulders like a cape. Holtz stares down at her tube of Pringles. She’d stuffed the moving van with snack food, of course she had, but now, even her favorites are failing her. The Pringles taste like dust in her mouth.

There’s a yelp from out in the bushes, and suddenly Abby’s there, the blanket flapping behind her. There’s something triumphant about her face, but the expression falls when she sees Holtz’s.

“What’s wrong?”

“What am I doing, Abby?” Holtz asks, desperately. “I don’t know what I’m doing and I just need someone to tell me what to do.”

Abby slides her hand into her jacket pocket. She and Patty exchange a look that Holtz pretends not to notice, and Abby crouches down in front of her.

“Holtz, you know my opinions on Rebecca.”

“That the last time I was in a relationship with her, she turned me into an agoraphobic, depressed, almost alcoholic, I know.”

Abby nods. “But it’s not my choice to make, what you do. It’s yours. And you should go with who makes you happy.”

There’s something loaded about the phrasing, but Holtz takes a deep breath.

“Rebecca makes me happy,” she says, more confidently than she feels.

“Okay, then.” There’s something sad in Abby’s voice, but she reaches into her pocket, and pulls out keys. She presses them into her hands.

“Come on, Holtzy. Let’s get you home.”  
-

Holtz sits in the moving van outside the apartment. Abby had claimed shotgun on the drive back, and she’s watching Holtz quietly, not saying anything. Patty’s doing the same in the backseat. Holtz tightens her grip on the steering wheel, even though the van’s parked, is turned off.

“So…” she says, quietly. “This is it.”

“This is it,” Abby agrees, and the soft, sad tone of her voice nearly breaks Holtz.

They pile out of the car, and Holtz tips her head back to stare up at the apartment. Nerves are roiling in her stomach, and she bites her lip. Patty draws her into a hug, and it’s tight and over as quickly as it started. Patty’s biting her lip, looking very much like she’s trying not to cry. Holtz gives her a watery smile, and presses the key to the loft into Patty’s hand.

And Abby. Abby is actually crying, and she clings to Holtz when she hugs her.

“Abs, it’ll be okay,” Holtz says, even as she cries a little bit, too. “I’ll still see you.”

“But it will be different,” Abby says, so softly that Holtz can barely hear her. And before she fully pulls away, she whispers in Holtz’s ear.

“Do what makes you happy, Jillian Holtzmann.”

Holtz doesn’t say anything, she just squeezes Abby tighter.

-

She doesn’t take the elevator up to the apartment. Instead, she climbs the stairs, all twelve flights, and she’s sticky and sweaty by the time she reaches the top, calves aching.

She pauses before unlocking the door to the apartment, a long, long time, because something about it doesn’t feel right.

She pushes the door open. Rebecca is unpacking in the living room, and she turns when Holtzmann enters to room, eyebrow raised in distaste.

“You’re all dirty, Jillian. And it’s almost ten at night.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Holtz says automatically, leaning up to kiss Rebecca. She can’t help but notice that there’s no _zing_ there, but that’s fine, because that only lasts at the beginning of the relationship, right?

“Better late than never,” Rebecca says, crisply. She doesn’t kiss Holtz back.

There’s a radio playing in the corner, and the melody is familiar, somehow.

_Now I’ve had the time of my life, no I’ve never felt like this before…_

And Holtz remembers. Erin crying on the doorstep of a restaurant, so long ago. Erin lighting up, minutes later, beaming at Erin, and how her smile made warmth gather in Holtz’s chest.

Erin. Erin, alone in the loft. Erin, soft, wonderful, amazing Erin, who blushes when Holtz flirts and laughs and Holtz’s jokes, who makes Holtz happy.

_Yes I swear it’s the truth, and I owe it all too you…_

And Holtz could be making a massive mistake, because she and Rebecca have the potential to be something, again, but…Rebecca and Holtz have history, and none of that history is happy. Rebecca doesn’t light up every room she steps into. Her smile doesn’t make Holtz’s stomach turn flips, her laugh doesn’t make Holtz want to laugh, too.

Rebecca doesn’t make Holtz happy. And Erin does. Erin makes Holtz so, so happy.

Do what makes you happy, Jillian Holtzmann.

And with Abby’s words echoing in her ears, Holtz leaves. She pounds down the stairs, coat flapping behind her, and as soon as she hits the sidewalk, she _runs_.

_‘cause I’ve had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you._

-

Erin hears the yelling from outside the loft.

“Hey, can someone let me in? Please, I don’t have my keys!”

And the voice is familiar, so familiar, and Erin sticks her head out the window, and her heart nearly bursts when she sees her, standing below on the sidewalk, blonde hair wild.

“Holtzmann!”

Holtz tips her head up, up, up, meeting Erin’s eyes, and her entire face breaks into a smile. “Erin!”

“Stay there! I’ll come down at let you up!”

And she’s running. Because Holtz is back, and Erin doesn’t know for how long, and she needs to tell her. Because even if this is horrible, even if this ends with fire and smoke and pain, she needs to tell her. She pounds at the button to the elevator, but it’s slow, too slow, and she’s already halfway to the stairs anyways. She flies down them, falling rather than running, and she bursts into the lobby, but Holtz isn’t there. She flies out the doors, onto the sidewalk, and now it’s Holtz hanging out the window of the loft.

“Erin! What are you doing?”

“Stay there!” They yell at each other at the same time, and then they’re moving, again.

Erin hits the button to the elevator, and with a pounding heart and a catch in her lungs, she waits.

-

Holtz leans against the button to the elevator, bouncing, because Erin is downstairs, and she needs to tell her.

Because she knows, now. She’s in love with Erin. She has been for ages, maybe since she first saw here, all those months ago, small and timid on their couch, back when they were strangers and unaware of all the things about to be. And no matter how much she tried to pretend otherwise, she can’t pretend now. She felt it, she feels it, the spark igniting her veins, setting her on fire from the inside out.

The elevator doors slide open, and there’s a man inside, with a cart piled with boxes.

“Move it!” She says, attempting to dance around him. “I need to go tell my best friend I love her!”

And he moves. And she sees her.

Erin, against the back wall of the elevator, eyes alight, bottom lip caught between her teeth. She smiles.

“Holtzmann,” she says, and her voice is full of maybes and almosts and finallys, and Holtz gets on the elevator.

“Gilbert,” she says, back, and she knows her voice is the same. They lean back, and smile at each other, full of hesitation and wanting.

The elevator doors slide closed.

-

The elevator doors slide open.

And they’re kissing. Erin’s arms are up around Holtz’s neck and Holtz has hers wrapped around Erin’s waist, and they’re kissing. For real, this time. They’re not drunk behind the iron curtain, they’re not kissing in the parking lot of the bar, both very aware that they shouldn’t be.

This time, this time they’re kissing, and it’s real and messy and so, so perfect.

In this moment, they are together, and they are burning, bright and white-hot, because the spark has finally, finally been ignited.

-

Later, there’s a girlfriend to break up with (for real, this time), and there are friends to tell and things to talk about. Later, there are apologizes and tears and so many things long since left unsaid to be said.

But there’s a lifetime of laters, now.

Right now, all that matters is that they’re together.

Finally, inevitably, uncontrollably.

They’re together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, it comes to an end. 
> 
> Kind of an open ending, a little bit, but it's still a happy one, and I like the idea of it this, really, where you can decide what happens after, it just ends with both of them happy and together, but doesn't go completely into the happily-ever-after.
> 
> If you want, you can come and say hi on [Tumblr](https://ainewrites.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Also, thank you so, so much for everyone who supported this 'fic, everyone who gave kudos or commented or bookmarked or subscribed. I love you all.


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